Does it sound like she will ""grow out of it""?

Hi all,

My 2year old little girl has recently been diagnosed with asthma by a peaditrician. She has had a recurring cough since she was 3mths old, croup and a wheezy cough which resulted in a nebuliser and trip hospital.

We now have an asthma plan of salbutamol and the brown inhaler (2 puffs morning and night) which has helped her fantastically well. She is being seen by the paed again in September to see how she is getting on.

Does it sound like she will grow out of it if she is already on all these meds? Thanks in advance xx

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Hi there, I had pretty horrid asthma as a young child, and I did grow out of it. But years later it came back as an adult. However, some children DO grow out of it and it doesnt come back x

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As far as I'm aware, there is absolutely no way, except genetic testing, to determine the likelihood of whether someone will 'grow out of' asthma. Some people with awful asthma in early childhood are symptom free a few years later, others with mild or no asthma in childhood develop terrible asthma as adults.

Even the genetic testing (news story on BBC this weekend) only captures a limited number of possibilities and still only talks in terms of probabilities.

However, given the advances in medicine even since I was diagnosed 22 years ago, who knows whether any of us will have to deal with asthma as we currently know it by the time your daughter is grown up.

What I would say is that given that you've got no control over whether she does or doesn't grow out of it, making that something that matters to you - as opposed to just hoping that she reaches a place where it's less disruptive - probably isn't ideal. If you hope she grows out of it then you might miss out on the relief of it being well controlled and not limiting her life-choices - I think that's enough to aim for (and much more likely to be achievable).

hth,

Cx

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Thank-you for your help. I just wondered what people's experiences were particularly with children who suffered under the age of 5 and what happened once they turned 5.

I am very aware of my daughters health issues as she has suffered since she was 3mths old but it was only through persistence that she was diagnosed and treated properly at 18mths. Obviously in an ideal world I would love for her to ""grow out of it"" as I hate to see her suffer in anyway. But if she doesn't then we will continue to learn how to control it together as a family and hopefully it will have as little impact on her childhood and life as she does grow.

I am absolutely 200% focused on getting to grips with her asthma plan and learning how to control her asthma so that we minimise the risk of attacks as much as we can. I would never let my wishes for her to grow out of it get in the way of looking after her or caring for her in anyway. I will do my best for her regardless.

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Hi,

Like others have said, asthma seems to be pretty unpredictable. I have a strong family history of allergies/asthma and 4 out of 5 siblings have/had it at some point. I think this illustrates quite well how everyone is different.

Child 1 (me) diagnosed when 3 (although like your daughter it was a bit of battle), took a bit of getting under control then on several treatments through childhood, diagnosed as severe aged 11 and had a terrible time with it throughout my teenage years, then it got better over about ten years so I went from maintance pred to just brown and blue inhaler, now getting worse again in my late twenties.

Child 2 (my non-identical twin) no asthma until she was 10, then got worse and is now brittle.

Child 3 - again diagnosed when 2 years old, had lots of attacks etc through primary school was fine after that and now only needs occasional blue inhaler.

Child 4 - diagnosed just before starting school, took a while to control but was generally well controlled and then eventually grew out of it.

Sorry if it is long winded but just thought this is a good illustration. I'm sure no one could have predicted this outcome when we were younger.

Having asthma since childhood means that I can't remember not having asthma and have grown up learning how to manage it myself. I started school knowing when I needed my inhaler and could pretty much take it myself (with supervision). It was an accepted part of daily life and so I was never tempted to not take it. Whereas my friend (who was diagnosed aged 8 had real difficulty in this). Again, the key is to get a good team behind you so that, even if the asthma is always there, your daughter can manage it well. She's obviously got a great support from you too as she gets older.

Take care

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Thank-you KaylaCP, that was really helpful and I'm sorry to hear that so many of your family members suffer with asthma.

I think now that we've finally got a dr to listen to us and we are been seen by a paediatrician as well that we have a good team behind us and obviously she will have mine and her daddy's support regardless of anything.

It just seems like such a minefield too me with so much to learn but we will learn together! She is already brilliant at taking her ""huffer"" as she calls it so at

least if it is lifelong then it is already part of her daily routine!

Is asthma genetic? Just because of all the things on the news at the moment has confused me!

Neither myself or my husband are asthma or allergy sufferers nor is anyone on either side of the family!

Thank-you again xx