asthma

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know if a dry cough at night is associated with asthma? It is ONLY at night. We live in kind of an old farmhouse and it has window A/C units. Well, since we installed units in each of the kids rooms and nice cold air is blowing in, Landen has been waking up and crying with a dry cough. When I go in to check on him he’s breathing harder than usual but has no fever. Just that non-productive dry hacking. He has no fever but he does have eczema all over his body even after I cut wheat back out. (he is dairy/soy/rice/wheat free now).

Any thoughts? For those of you with kiddos with allergies/eczema/asthma does a humidifier help this or make it worse? Landen already has reactive airway disease and has to use a nebulizer & levalbuterol (xopenex) when he has a cold. Should I start giving him treatments before bed??

Thanks

[Anonymous]

I might give him the neb treatments and see how he does. He may be reacting to something that the a/c is stiring up. I don’t know that I would do a humidifier. We started using an Ionizer in Cooper’s room and in our Den b/c I was concerned with Cooper’s allergies with all the pollen, pet dander etc and it seems to have helps. I ordered ours from QVC only b/c my mom is a QVC junkie and got me a good deal but they have them at target as well.. Might be worth a try to see if it can pull whatever is bothering him out of the air. I am not sure if it is asthma but b/c he has reactive airway already I bet he is prone to asthma type symptoms. Good Luck… I hope that helps some.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Beth. I never thought about using an ionizer but what a great idea. I am an independant consultant for Discovery Toys and we actually have a Cystal Salt Ionizer in our product line. I have to get one for Landen and see if it helps some. I hate to even say this, but after DH and I observed him tonight at my MIL’s house, we think one of his ear tubes is already on it’s way out. He keeps leaning his head to the right with his hand over his ear and shaking his head. So off to the ENT we will be going next week too. *sigh*

thanks again for the suggestion. Landen is currently Benadryl’d & Tylenol’d and in bed. Fingers crossed for a decent night.

[Anonymous]

Jill, How did Landen do last night?? I am sure the benadryl helped some.. Always gets Cooper at least 4 hrs of good sleep most of the time.

[Anonymous]

I would also ask if you had cleaned out those filters in teh window A/c’s last year when you took them out or before you put them in this year. If there is any old dust sitting in there then that could be disturbing Landen as well.

Probably not the issue but just a thought that came to mind……

[Anonymous]

thanks ladies.

Beth, Landen slept ok the first night and made it til 3am last night. We have a pedi appt today at 3:50. I suspect that he has an ear infection or ear tube coming out on top of it all.

Ann Marie, that is def a good thought. We are renting this house right now, we may buy it eventually. It is our first summer in it and we bought brand new A/C units a few weeks ago for the kids rooms. The owner of the house let us use her old one for the other side of the house, opposite of the kids rooms. I will def have DH check the filter in that one. I know dust bothers me too.

[Anonymous]

Poor Landen and poor Jill… I hope things go well at the appointment… meaning you figure out what is wrong. I’ll be interested to hear.

[Anonymous]

i would think that running the air conditioner in his room could be the cause of his cough—-maybe try a fan that does not blow directly on him instead.

there are some controversial issues about ionizers that you gals might want to look into.

i have had allergy coughs that will appear only at night. sammie is just getting over a cought that appears to have been allergy connected. we even had her chest x-rayed because the doc thought she might be developing asthma.

if it were me, i think i would put in a call to the doc and see what he has to say.

[Anonymous]

Asthma affects people of all ages,but it most often starts in
childhood. In the United States,more than 22 million people are known
to have asthma.Nearly 6 million of these people are children.

[Anonymous]

sorry i dont have time to read everyones comments. but did want to add a couple things

sienna has the “cough” but its a congestion cough. she needs an inhaler daily.. does landon have on for everyday use? when her reflux is acting up i seem to notice a correlation.

hers is also basically at night.. well the worst at night.

does he have a drip?? that could be doing it as well.

[Anonymous]

Jill,

Yes yes yes, a dry cough at night is a symptom of asthma. My son was diagnosed at 15 months. At first, the docs don’t like to diagnose ‘asthma’ until there are 3 clear episodes. Well, that didn’t take us long… But the one thing my pedi asked several times: “does he cough more at night?” “is it a dry cough?”

Since cold air can be an asthma trigger, it is also possible that the cooler air from the air conditioner could trigger asthma symptoms.

Like others have said, if he responds to an asthma medication like albuterol, then he is probably having asthma symptoms.

-KGB

[Anonymous]

asthma comes from the Greek word asthma which means
panting. This is a common disease of the airway which is caused due to
inflammation. It is normally seen with a lot of symptoms which keep
recurring.

[Anonymous]

I have had asthma since I was about 7 years old and my daughter has had nebulizer treatments but I wouldn’t exactly say she has asthma. The nebulizer was expensive but our Cobra insurance at the time helped pay for some of it.

Usually with asthma, you can hear a pronounced wheezing sound when they are having difficulty breathing. A dry cough may mean that the air is too dry or he may have been suffering from a cold or something.

LannaT2011-11-04 11:49:49

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