Do any of you have a child in your family with asthma?

ryanthegirl

Casey has asthma - he was diagnosed when he was around G's age. It is not "childhood" asthma or an asthmatic cough. His condition is very serious and asthma probably isn't even the right diagnosis (but that's all they had to go on when he was a kid). When he was 14, he was hospitalized for almost a year and came very close to having his left-lung removed. The reason I'm sharing is that I've told our pediatrician about Casey's condition numerous times but they just sort of brush it off.

Any time G gets sick (even a minor cold) it seems to drop into his chest immediately and he gets a really rough cough and wheezes, he uses accessory muscles to breathe. In his short life, he's had bronchitis 3 times. We were prescribed a nebulizer about a year ago, and it's helped tremendously. We don't feel like we need to run to the doctor every time the symptoms flair up, especially since Casey has direct experience and he's a nurse.

After consulting Doctor Google (don't flame me, I read the mayo clinic website) - it seems like, in most cases, asthma is not really diagnosed unless there's a serious incident like an attack. G also has moderate eczema (so does Casey) which often goes hand in hand with asthma. Given the family history, I feel like we should be able to find out if G has asthma w/o waiting for some horrible incident to occur (unless that's medically impossible).

Do you or a family member have a child with asthma? 

How was it diagnosed?

Any advice on how I can get our pediatrician to listen to me?

AmandaJLewis

Yep, EJ has asthma (eczema, and allergies. Which when clustered is also called "atopic")

She had her first bad wheezing episode when she was around a year and had a bad cold. It was scary and I wasn't sure what to do because I was not familiar with asthma at all.  Our pedi said that until kids have had multiple asthma incidents they do not usually classify them as asthmatic. After her third experience they got us our own nebulizer.  From then on we controlled her symptoms with that, and she was always worse in cold season. Sometimes to the point where her medicine didn't do the trick so we would end up in the ER so they could give her longer/different breathing treatments to get rid of the underlying wheeze. I guess we have had to do that 3 times now.

She is on a pulmacort puffer twice daily now for prevention and albuterol as needed. She had been on singulair briefly but it is expensive and seemed to make her ragey. Her allergy doctor tests her lungs at each appointment, but Gabe is probably too young to take the instructions of that test and do it correctly.

If you are really concerned, I would see a specialist. 

ak111

Keefer has asthma.  He was in the emergency room once right around his first Birthday and then we had to take him to Children's Hospital and he ended up spending a night in the ER, a night in PICU, and a night in a regular room...it was probably the worst couple days of my life.  He was on a nebulizer with albuterol multiple times between the two hospital trips.  The pediatrician didn't officially say "asthma" until our 3 night stay in the hospital.  He has been on pulmocort daily and albuterol as needed since then.  We do take a break from the pulmocort in the summer and they switched him this year in August to a puffer instead of the nebulizer since he is older.  He doesn't have excema or other allergies that we know of and the asthma only acts up when he gets a cold and (fingers crossed) we've been making it through more and more colds without the albuterol lately so he may be outgrowing the asthma.  It is a scary thing and I would see a specialist if you're concerned and you don't feel like your pediatrician is paying close enough attention.   

ryanthegirl

I didn't realize EJ had asthma. It's so scary when you can tell they're having trouble breathing.

Thanks, Amanda, I really appreciate the insight. I don't want to be all hysterical-mom about it but something is tugging at me that we should be more proactive about the possibility. 

Casey was on pulmacort until a few years ago! Is it still in that giant inhaler?

ryanthegirl

Abbey, I'm so sorry to hear that. That must have been so scary. I'm glad to hear that he's been making it through more and more colds w/o incident.

Would the specialist be a pediatric pulmonologist? Or maybe an allergist? Casey has a laundry list of allergies, too.

AmandaJLewis

If you feel like his symptoms are controlled and only triggered occasionally I would keep track of the times you need the nebulizer with the rescue meds for a wheeze and if you need to treat every 4 hours or if it is just a one time thing. That info will help the doctor and you manage it. 

EJ's preventitive med is in a normal inhaler now that she is older but we use a spacer between it and her for both the rescue and preventitive meds.  When she was using the neb she had the little liquid "Budesonide" which I think is generic pulmicort. but we use QVar and ProAir now. The puffers are so much easier than the neb!

EJ's allergist does both the asthma and allergy stuff. http://www.allergyclinical.com/ We used to see Dr Albright but she isn't there anymore.  Which made me sad. I like the PA who is there. But I have not yet tried many of the other docs just yet. I would like to before deciding if we will switch to another office, but happy for the time being!

ryanthegirl

Thank you, Amanda!

AmandaJLewis

There is another allergy office out near south hills village that is affiliated with childrens hospital. Pretty sure they do asthma too.  If you have any other questions let me know. I am happy to offer my experiences!  Here or Facebook are fine!

northhillsbride

AmandaJLewis said:

If you feel like his symptoms are controlled and only triggered occasionally I would keep track of the times you need the nebulizer with the rescue meds for a wheeze and if you need to treat every 4 hours or if it is just a one time thing. That info will help the doctor and you manage it. 

I'd recommend this as well.

Gavin had pneumonia at around 6mos of age, which never went away, so was diagnosed again with it around 8.5 months. At the doctor's urging, we ended up at Children's to see a pediatric pulmonologist for a CF test. That was negative, but they did diagnose him with asthma.

Like Amanda and Abby, we then became the proud owners of a nebulizer with pulmicort and albuterol. We would have to administer both at the same time whenever he got bad.

Also like the others, and G it sounds like, any cold Gavin gets goes right into his chest and stays there. He's never been diagnosed with bronchitis, but we manage him with the meds we have along with the nebulizer.

Around age 1 the docs put him daily singulair - he stayed on it until almost 4. I took him off of it then because he was having a lot of major behavioral issues at that age and I felt it could be a long-term effect of the med. At that time, bc of the behavior, I tok him to an Asthma & Allergy specialist in Cranberry, who didn't agree with me taking him off the singulair, but whatever. I was at the point where I was just getting refills of the same doseage of med for 3 years, despite obvious size growth. I had him tested for allergies as well (desperate times, I tell you!). He also has mild eczema in the cold weather.

Last Fall (age 5), he had a rough respiratory infection, so I took him to a pediatric pulmonologist at Children's in Wexford (Sewickley technically) and they put him on the preventative inhaler, and gave him a rescue one as well. We did the preventative throughout the Winter and weaned off of it in the Spring. Since then he has not had to take anything for his breathing. Of course we do make sure he doesn't get the flu mist, just in case, but we haven't had any issues, thankfully. As our pediatrician told us years ago, most boys tend to grow out of the asthma around age 6 - here's hoping it's true for us.

Listen to your gut - if something is nagging you, pursue it. There's no harm in going to a specialist to learn more about what you can do to help your child. Good luck!

egpitt22

Can't help you with the asthma, but we dealt with pneumonia that drug on for nearly 4 months with Liam last fall, and during that time, saw a wonderful pulmonologist at Children's.  He sees patients in Monroeville, Wexford, and Lawrenceville.  if you want the info, let me know!

kris356

What you describe is was my youngest sister. You could literally hear her breathing down the hall. After several brochitis, my parents ended up at the allergist and her treatment was almost identical to what Amanda said. She did outgrow it. But my dad also has asthma.

Luckystar2

AmandaJLewis said:

There is another allergy office out near south hills village that is affiliated with childrens hospital. Pretty sure they do asthma too.

My friend used to work there and I did a research study there. They definitely did both at least when I lived in the area. I know where I am now offices are generally allergy and asthma together.

ryanthegirl

Thanks everyone, I think I may try to schedule something for after the holidays. I really appreciate it.