still struggling with nights

My little man is having what is for him a good asthma spell at the moment - meaning he only needs his reliever once a day as the daytime cough isnt too bad but he does get breathless quickly and takes little breaks still. However he still struggles at night and has needed a night reliever at least once every night since june. Sometimes its only 2 puffs but he definitely cant go without or he is even more exhausted the next day or the cough gets worse and worse through the night.

His consultant has suggested giving 6-10 puffs of his reliever before bed so as to sort of head it off early. First night last night and he still needed a further ventolin all be it later in the night than he typically would. Fingers crossed it helps in the next few days.

Just wondered if anyone had some tips or anything we can do? Anyone else had a persistent night cough that just wont get lost?!

22 Replies

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  • Does he have a long acting reliever? I guess he does if you're seeing a consultant.

    Yes, had the persistent night cough. Night's by far the worst for me and i can sometimes go for weeks being woken every night. I'm afraid meds need udjusting to get better control again. Good luck with it, I hope his nights improve soon.

  • does your son have a preventer inhaler?

    when I only had a reliever inhaler my asthma cough was really bad and I hardly had more than 2 hours sleep at a time

    but when I got my preventer inhaler my cough cleared up in 10 days and I don`t use my reliever inhaler nearly as much now, just 1 or 2 puffs per 24 hours

  • He does have a preventer and is on the maximum dose they can safely give him due to him being so young. He doesn't have a long acting deliver. Maybe I should bring this up with the consultant. I assume it works in the same way as the ventolin just lasts longer than 4 hours?

  • Hi

    When our little one was still struggling after taking preventer and reliever she was given a green serevent inhaler which is a long acting reliever. This along with singlair has helped her alot. Def worth asking when you see consultant

  • We are still struggling mostly in the late afternoons, evenings and overnight. I am due to see his consultant in 3 weeks and he has previously said if the 3 puffs of clenil twice a day did not work he would put him on a seretide inhaler similar to mine. I will be pushing for this. The difference the seretide makes to me is amazing, I know it doesnt suit everyone but I would rather my son try this.

  • How old is he?

    My son is nearly 3 and is on 400mg of clenil, 4g montelukast and 50g serevent daily and this combination seems to almost have him under control and certainly seems to have helped with the night time cough (well for 8 hours as thats how long the serevent seems to work for him!)

  • He will be three in January. We have had a couple of nights with no reliever, most he still needs it once but no more than once since we started the reliever before bed. Will mention the long acting reliever again next time I see the Dr.

  • Hi

    Just wondered how things are with your son?

    After yet another admission 10 days ago we saw my sons consultant today he has been changed from 600mcg clenil and 4g of montelukast granules daily to a 125mcg seretide inhaler one puff twice daily and a nasal wash. He is also being seen by an ENT specialist as the consultant believes some of my sons breathing difficulties may be caused by oversized adenoids. For almost 18 months my son has drunk loads (well over 3litres of plain water) most days and another specialist put it all down to compulsive drinking and told me to cut it down. Finally someone actually believes me that its not just compulsive drinking and the mouth breathing as he can't breath thru his nose is probably causing it.

    Hope things aren't too difficult for you.

    Jenny

  • Thanks for asking.

    Still struggling. His consultant was speaking to a more specialist Dr this week so I will chase that up tomorrow. She will probably think Im stalking her or something but he is complaining his chest hurts with all the coughing. I think the plan is a long acting reliever. We will be discussing an ent referral for large tonsils and adenoids at his next appointment next month his chronic upper resp infections/inflammation continue. Interesting about the water, my son is a huge drinker too. I just put it down to his throat being sore a lot. Does your son get nose bleeds often? My son gets them quite often especially at night.

    Sounds like our boys are quite similar bless them.

  • Ah we are quite lucky the consultant he sees for his asthma is a specialist in allergy and respiratory disorders. We were seeing 3 different paediatric consultants for different things which after seeing his consultant last week all seem to be related so it has been decided that we just see the specialist allergy and respiratory consultant as that is the most serious problem.

    I think to be honest the adenoids and tonsils could explain a lot of his problems and I am just shocked no one has thought of this before.

    - He hasn't slept through the night since he was 14 months old (he slept through previous to that since he was 11 weeks old)

    - almost from birth he sounded like Darth Vadar when he slept and still does now and snores very loudly.

    - he failed two hearing tests at 26 & 27 months due to eustachian tube problems.

    - never breathes through his nose - now believed to be the reason for his excessive drinking.

    He has seen a consultant as it was thought he had diabetes insipidis (water diabetes), another for the blue episodes he had, multiple hearing tests and several GPs as I was very concerned at the breathing when he was tiny. In addition to all the doctors he has seen in the many times he has been admitted.

    My son doesn't get nose bleeds but he doesn't seem to breathe through his nose at all?

    They do sound very similar don't they. I am just glad I don't have to follow one consultants advice that I need to cut my sons drinking down to 1-1.5 litres per day it was becoming a nightmare. Now he is free to drink as much as he likes until they work out exactly what is going on :)

    .... final note we have that typical asthma cough starting up today he's just had 4 puffs of ventolin about to give some more... fingers crossed we don't end up at the hospital again :(

  • We were supposed to be referred to the respiratory clinic but long story short there was a bit of a misunderstanding where my GP thought he was already under them as we are under the community resp team so instead we got an urgent referral with the lead pediatric consultant however the respiratory team advise on him so are very aware of him.

    We are often to pick up his serevent prescription in a bit.Please let this help!

    Hope your little one is better soon Jenny :(

  • At least you are getting the best advice.

    Is the serevent different to seretide?

    He's still quite bad but we are still managing to control things at home at the moment. He's only been on the seretide for 6 days so guessing it will take a while to have full effect.

  • I think the serevent is just the long acting reliever part of seretide? He still has his clenil and ventolin.

    Fingers crossed these work for our little men.

  • Have you started the serevent yet?

    Thomas has been on his seretide for 8 days now and has been extremely bad tempered almost since starting it. He has been wheezing more for the last 3 days than he was previously but not getting bad enough to take him to hospital. I am ending up giving more ventolin some days than I was previously. It just doesn't seem right :(

  • Yes we started it straight away. True to form he has a cold now so we are still using a fair amount of ventolin as we usually would, we shall see how we go. We are on day 3 and no side effects thankfully. Your poor little man that sounds awful for you both. My son became very angry and aggressive on singulair and to see him change almost overnight was heartbreaking. Are you thinking of giving his consultant a ring to see what they think? Especially if you are almost reaching the hospital stage :-(

  • We have just been to my gp she's given me a 5 day course of steroids for him as we think the difficulty breathing may be contributing to the bad temper. Thomas is on singular and since he started on that we have noticed progressively his aggression getting worse. Have to see how the next couple of days go if it is a cold or a virus coming on it will prob mean hospital at some point.

  • Fingers crossed he's feeling better soon.

    The singulair didn't work for Ryan so they stopped it and he went back to his old self. Just means now most recent colds etc have needed pred but that obviously affects him too.

  • Well things have been up and down since my last message Thomas is yet again in hospital. This time he's in the HDU as the hourly nebulisers haven't given much improvement so far so they have now put him on IV salbutamol I think they said it was. Feel a bit disappointed as he's never been that bad that he needed IV before yet he's on stronger inhaler now? How's things with you? X

  • Poor Thomas and poor you. So sorry he's so poorly.

    Things are ok with us at the moment. The serevent has given us a few nights with no ventolin which was brilliant. He still coughs with exercise and gets breathless and worn out very quickly. I'm hoping it is

    just a case of him being little still.

    It's strange as I've noticed Ryan's attacks are more severe since his doses have been increased. Maybe it's a coincidence or linked to the fact he's still not fully controlled despite the increases

    Really hope Thomas is better and home soon. X

  • My son is bad at night he sound like he's clearing his throat constantly he's now on singulair could you not give that a try? x

  • We've tried singulair and unfortunately it didn't help.

    Now the weather has changed my eldest has started coughing a lot at night now so back to getting up through the night. He settles down as soon as he's more used the the change in weather thankfully. If only my youngest had asthma like his brother that is quite easy to control!

  • Thomas's asthma is a nightmare to control. Although we have cut down on the day time ventolin his attacks can be difficult to predict they come on suddenly and quickly pass wheezing to the point his airways are so tight you get no wheeze. Consequently we end up at the hospital a lot lately. X

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