inhalers

[leckershell]

Ryan's "chest infection" is getting slowly and slightly worse, so after 2 different antibiotics courses (the first lot were amoxicillins he had a reaction to so they tried another type) he was given a blue inhaler ventolin a couple of weeks ago. While that works for a few minutes, it's not made any long term difference, and he was given another today called atrovent.

Nat's side of the family have a history of asthma, and his half sister was having the same symptoms as Ryan and then had an asthma attack when she was really small and they diagnosed it. Nat or I don't have it, and I don't know the foggiest about asthma, and the doctor today said you can't physically have asthma until you're 1 (something to do with lungs/nerves/valves development or something, it's not physically possible).

He's got a cough, a rattly chest, constantly sounds congested but not a lot on the bogey front so it's hanging about somewhere.. he's also less happy about chunks in his food and dropped from stage 3 back to stage 1 and I've only just got him back onto stage 2 again. He's had it for a while too, a month or so before his chicken pox and that was about 5 weeks ago. He's otherwise happy and alert though.

Just wondered really if any of your kiddies have had this and if it led to asthma, or anything else... or if yours use inhalers for any reason. I was told today by the doctor that if he has both inhalers 4 times a day and he's still getting no better then he'll be referred to a paeditrician.

 

[Rosieroo]

DS is asthmatic and on clenil (brown) 100mg puffs x 4 a day and ventolin (blue) as and when he needs it.

He started on inhalers when he was approx 9-10 months old, they diagnosed him with baby asthma at that point so not sure what your doctor means?

Maybe he could do with a short course of steroids, argh can't remember what they're called but the tablets are blue! to help clear it? Also when Alex's wheezing gets bad they put him on a steam puffer thing (again the name escapes me, am braindead today!) with a mega dose of steriods in it (which makes him super hyper).

DS has also been given granules which have a similiar effect to the brown inhaler but don't contain steriods, which is better for them in the long term. I do worry about him being on steriods long term because of the possible problems with growth and bad teeth.

It's horrible when they're wheezy and chesty, it's taken us since last October to get Alex's wheezing under control and to stop him from picking up every illness going. He'd been healthy for 6 weeks (a record!) and has just come down with a cold so we're watching him like a hawk as they usually turn into chest infections.

 

[Becky]

Lucy was always getting coughs that wouldn't be on her chest when I first took her to the docs but then the next week I'd have to take her back again at which point it would be on her chest and she'd need antibiotics.

Eventually the doc said that if she continued to be like that once the weather imporved then we'd have to consider asthma (both me and her dad had it as children). So the weather turned nice and Lu was still the same so we tried Ventolin (she uses a spacer) and that worked really well when she had a cough so when we went for a review the doc gave her Clenil (?) which is brown and she has two puffs twice a day. She hasn't had a chest infection since!

I know there are side effects but for me the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Lucy had a much better winter and barely suffers with coughs these days, if she does it lasts a few days but the inhaler helps her body fight it off before it becomes an infection.

 

[Rosieroo]

I remembered the steroids I was talking about earlier - prednisole and they're pink. Dissolve them in a bit of water and try your best to get him to take them, Alex ends up with it everywhere

And the puffer thing is a nebuliser. Ha I've been stood in the kitchen racking my brains as to what I meant, you can tell Ella had us up at 3.30 last night!