My dad and brother are both asthmatic and I was diagnosed with mild asthma last year. It looks as though Thomas is going the same way.
He had his first "episode" in early Dec 2009, just after his 1st birthday. He'd been ill all over his birthday with a bad a cold, and then a few days later he didn't want to eat or drink anything and was a bit wheezy. We ended up in hospital, where he was monitored on the paediatric ward. We were also given inhalers although at the time it was still being referred to as a "viral induced wheeze".
He is currently taking Beclometasone (brown inhaler) as a preventer: 4 puffs using a spacer morning and night, and Salbutamol (blue) up to 10 puffs 4 hourly as and when he needs it as a reliever.
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| Paediatric ward Nov 2010 |
Since July 2010 Thomas has had another 6 episodes, 3 of which we've ended up in A&E, and then onto paediatrics for monitoring The other 3 episodes have all been in the last 3 weeks, which makes me wonder if there is something triggering it.
His latest "episode" started last Wednesday night. He had a dry sounding cough which woke us up several times in the night. By Thursday morning he had started wheezing so we gave him his blue inhaler to take. Things did improve a little, but by Thursday afternoon we were getting a bit concerned as the inhaler wasn't being as effective as it should be.
Paul managed to get an emergency appointment with our GP who put Thomas on a nebuliser. His breathing soon returned to normal.
We have now have a nebuliser on loan for Thomas to use over the next two weeks until he is clear of this episode. His breathing is OK most of the time, but he does get out of breath and wheezy if he has been doing a lot of running around. He is such a good boy with it and as long as he can watch Fireman Sam on the TV he is happy!
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| Nebuliser time |
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| fast recovery! |
We have an appointment at the asthma clinic in a couple of weeks time to review his medication. In the meantime I'm trying to source some local honey as a friend of mine suggested that it could help if his asthma is triggered by hay fever. Hopefully things will improve for our little chap soon.
On a positive front both of my brothers had ashma as children, with many a trip to A&E full of panic. They are both now over 30, and have no signs of Ashma at all - and one of my brothers was even in the army for a number of years without problems.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Hopefully Thomas will also grow out of it.
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