Nasty flare-up in 5 year old

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gimpy12

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Hi all. My son is five and dealing with a very nasty asthma flare-up this week. Every winter when he catches a cold his asthma goes crazy. Whatever he has this week is particularly horrible. We were in the ER until 3am the other night because he had a fever that was spiking a little over 105 after a full day of alternating Motrin and Tylenol.

The ER doc diagnosed him as "clinical pneumonia." ER doc said he couldn't hear any wheezing so didn't think it was his asthma but thought he could hear something in one of his lower lobes. The nurse practitioner he saw today thinks it's his asthma. She gave us a 3-day prescription of Prednisone to be taken twice a day. MY question.....

The pharmacy didn't have the prescription ready until just now. Should I try to squeeze two doses in? HIs coughing is now so bad that it makes him vomit.

My other concern is that this is his fourth day with a fever. ER gave us an antibiotic (Zythromax). Today will be his third dose and he doesn't seem to be getting better. I don't really know where to start but if I don't start demanding something else be tried I'm afraid of the outcome.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.:confused:
 
Hi, when my son was 5, he also had a horrible case of asthma, one of his lungs collapsed, I know this sounRAB strange, but the doctor told me to have him lay off the couch, head down to the floor and pat heavily on his back, this will cause flem to break up and he will cough it up, we had to do this for 2 weeks before he got better, his lung did repair itself.

Sunny
 
Thank you for the suggestion, it'll definitely be worth a try. How often did you have to do this? Have him lay on the couch with his head hanging off?

I think this contradicts what they usually say about treating asthma, but I've found that putting him in the bathroom with the hot water running gives him some relief. But then, so does opening the windows and letting some cold dry air in the house (it's only 20 degrees F here). The poor kid is at the point where between the fevers, coughing, and most likely lack of sleep he looks like he has two black eyes.

The ARNP he saw yesterday pretty much contradicted everything the ER doc had told us... and seemed pretty insulted about it too. His follow up next week is with another ARNP cuz you can never get in to see an actual doctor when there is a problem. First thing Monday morning I'm going to call and demand an appointment with the pediatrician. If we can't get one then we'll look somewhere else.

Good news is his fever finally broke today... 98.8! :)
 
I am glad his fever broke. We had to do this procedure for 2 weeks, and it never happened again thank God! We did have to have him under go allergy testing and then allergy shots, we did this for 2 years. We kept it under control pretty well after that, although the sad thing was, we could never let him play sports, the first time he played soccer, he got asthma really bad. This was back in 1970, and they really did not have much in place to treat kiRAB in those days (feeling ancient)but I am telling you, that doing the couch thing really, really helped. He was so allergic to the world it seemed, dirt, grass, dust, everything, I had to wash down the walls daily, put a protective cover on the mattress and pillows, and of course vacuum and dust daily, a good thing to do is get rid of carpeting, although I know that is not easy. We had wood flooring so it was not hard to keep dust free, just hard to do all the work that came with it. My son is now 44 and has hopefully outgrown his asthma, I had it for 21 years and then it was gone (knock on wood).

Sunny
 
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