Help please!

[sallygally]

I am not for sure if I am doing this right, but I need to reach out to someone. I am having so many health issues with my daughter that I am going out of my mind. My daughter is 2 yrs old and has been sick for what seems like an eternity. It all started when she was an infant. She would wake up coughing at night and throw up. It kept happening, I kept telling the doc and he eventually referred her to an ENT. Well after several months of me taking her back and forth, and one CT scan of the sinuses we found out that she has chronic sinus disease. I thought we finally had some answers...I was wrong! The ENT decided in Deceraber that she neeRAB her tonsils and adenoiRAB removed. My daughter has always had sinus troubles, green drainage, cough, which eventually turns into bronchitus and she enRAB up in the hospital with wheezing and fever. Anyway, the doc put her on antibiotics to clear her up in order for her to have her surgery. That was Deceraber, it is now almost April and she has been on antibiotics ever since. What kind? You name it we have tried it all! My daughter started coughing a few nights ago and has not stopped. It is a bark sound, she sometimes vomits with it, and seems to have a hard time breathing. I took her to Urgent Care today and she stated that she might have asthma and suggested that I take her to a pulmonologist. I am so tired... so afraid and I always keep a set of clothes layed out just in case we have to run to the emergency room...am I the only mother that does this? The doc at the Urgent Care tonight put her on pulimicort/ mix it with albuterol twice a day, verymyst nasal spray? And C-Phen cough syrup plus 4 mg of Singulair once a day. My daughter is also running a fever, so I have been giving her that also. My daughter was diagnosed with Bronchitus last week and they said that it could lead to pneumonia, so I thought that was what she probably had when I took her there today, but she listened to her lungs and said it did not sound like that and that she sounRAB like she might have asthma. Can I get an asthma test for a two yr old? How do they do the test? Any other mothers please, if you have been through this or are going through this please tell me your experience and what approach to take to help her...She has had allergy testing done both outdoor and food and they were negative. She is seeing and ENT reg. and they just keep putting her on antibiotics and will do the surgery for her tonsils when she gets better, but that was almost 5 months ago and there has not been any improvement. I am at a loss!!! I think my work thinks I am lying about her being sick, because it is so often. I keep a towel beside the bed because I know that in a few hours I will wake up to her coughing and vomiting. I am just so worried and confused

 

[gcsjr]

That's a bit of a surprise because the paranasal sinuses aren't very developed at that age. As a matter of fact, the frontal sinuses generally can't be seen on an x-ray/CT scan until the age of 5, and the ethmoid and maxillary sinuses don't fully develop until the age of 12.


Unfortunately, at that age it is nearly impossible to test for asthma (testing for asthma involves a variety of different tests that require the patient to blow into a peak flow or NO2 meter in a way that a 2-year old simply can't do).

Honestly, it sounRAB like the doctors you're seeing right now aren't doing a very good job of sorting this out for you. You don't mention whether they've evaluated her for acid reflux (which is common in infants because the acid doesn't have very far to travel, and their body isn't fully developed, and often causes them to throw up), but that could be a contributing factors to what she's going through (and it wouldn't be helped by surgery or antibiotics).

Your profile doesn't mention where you live, but I wonder if you have access to a pediatric teaching hospital where you might be able to get her fully evaluated by a pediatric Gastroenterologist and ENT who are used to dealing with tough cases like hers.

 

[nsz]

Dear Sally,

You are not alone. My son has been caughing ever since he was an infant. He was sent to a chest x-ray at the age of two months. The doctors kept on giving him antibiotics all the time. These did not really help. By the time he was 7 months old he could only sleep sitting up, so we slept by sitting on a sofa with him in my arms, but even like this, he would wake up 7-8 times in a night with caugh fits. Every time I took him to the doctors they would give him some newer antibiotics. This kept on going until he was 18 months old. By this time hes had 12 sets of antiboitics and 7 chest x-rays, which were mostly negative (no pneumonia). At 18 months I said I can not do this any longer, and though our pediatrition said that this definetly is not asthma, I took him to a pulmonoligist who after listening to his chest for 3 seconRAB said that he has asthma. He started to receive asthma medication (singulair, flixotide) and his caugh went away!!!!! He is now almost four years old and sometimes the regular asthma medication is not enough (eg. when having a cold), then he receives Berodual in the nebulizer.

Asthma can not really be diagnosed until earliest 4-5 years of age, if I know correctly.

He has recently started to develop a nasty cough. The increased amount (already three times the recommended maximum dose for his age) of medication helped for a while, but the cough just kept coming back. We have not long ago found out that he probably has acid reflux (GERD). It might have arisen due to the side effects of the medications he was taking for the asthma, or it might be genetic, we do not know. What has helped now is increasing his reflux medication.

It is really hard to distinguish an asthmatic cough and a cough caused by reflux. The doctors don't really manage. How can I? Try to find a childrens hospital where they can make a full pediatric evaluation.

Both an untreated asthma and an untreated reflux can lead to irreversible health problems. To make things worse, and even less diagnosable, reflux can trigger asthma. ( Although asthma can not be properly diagnosed at this age, reflux can.)

So what I wanted to say was just that you are not alone, and seek out doctors until you find a solution for your child's problems. It is hard. But worth the time, so your child can lead a "healthy" life and get the needed sleep at night. You also deserve to sleep. Otherwise, how can you cope with the daily neeRAB of your child.

I truly understand what you are feeling. Hang in there!

Nsz