Breathing Problems - Blue Springs,MO

When my nephew was 9 months old, after wheezing for months, my SIL finally took him to an ENT and they found that he had a severe sinus infection that his regular doctor didn't find. They sucked him out with some machine and then put him on some meds and he was clear after that. That could be the problem with your little one. You may want to see a pediatric ENT. Hope this helps. Good luck and God Bless.

I second the humidifier idea. It is extremely cold so furnances are running really nonstop. Everything is very dry. Also, I noticed with my son if his room is too cold he will cough all night. When they were younger my kids would have the raspy wheezing with coughs. For the most part they have outgrown this.

Sounds like a lot of what my son went through years ago. I would suggest taking your child to an allergy/asthma doctor. With the cold weather and the heat on and everyone shut it, your daughter may have some allergies, or possibly asthma. I would take her just to get it checked out for your peace of mind. I worried the same way you do, but not so much anymore. Good luck.

Hi L.,
Have you recently acquired a new pet or introduced her(your daughter) to a new food or drink. She may be having an allergic reaction to something new in your house!

Just a thought! Good Luck!

B.

humidifiers help hugely with this issue. Just make sure it's always clean & mold-free. In our home, we have a whole-house humidifier on the gas furnace which self-regulates the amount of humidity it adds to the air.

We also heat the great room with a fireplace insert. To compensate for this very dry heat, we keep a kettle of water on the wood stove. & it has to be refilled daily!

Something else that may help is the been-around-forever Vicks Vapor rub. It works...it almost instantly opens up those airways! I use it regularly & keep it available year-round. Sometimes I can skip my inhaler just by taking a good whiff of the Vicks. & yes, my family teases me!

I've dealt with this with my kids. When kids get a cold their airways can get inflamed, causing the wheezing. (you've probably seen the asthma medicine commericals about treating both symptoms of asthma, constriction and inflammation). It doesn't mean she has asthma, it is just her reaction to a cold. The more she is coughing, the more it can become inflammed. The breathing treatments will help open her lungs. Though if it doesn't seem to be getting better in a day or 2 (or better after she gets the treatment, but gets worse again before she is due for another treatment) she may need a steroid to help the treatments to work, and the doctor can prescribe that when you take her back in.

Things you can do to help, is run a humidifer in her room, keep her nose cleared as best you can. I have used saline, and then sucked a couple times a day. Give her as much fluids as she will take. The fluids help with her nose secretions, and suctioning keeps it out of her lungs, which will lesson her cough.

I have dealt with this with 2 kids for the last 3 years. She may be end up wheezing with each cold, but they do outgrow it as their lungs develop more. Two of my kids suffered from wheezing during colds for the first couple years of their life. My 3 year old (who started wheezing at 15 months old) barely ever wheezes with a cold anymore. My 2 year old, who has wheezed since birth used to be have to be on breathing treatments every single cold now just got over a cold and didn't have one breathing treatment (she'd have a runny nose about every 4-6 weeks too)

First off, you can definitely give her another albuterol treatment before 4 hours. In fact, I've been instructed to "piggy-back" 2 treatments if the first doesn't work (stop the wheezing). The albuterol wont hurt her. It will just make her shaky but if she needs it, give it to her. My 23 month-old just has a bad episode of breathing problems and while we were at urgent care, the doc. talked about doing an hour long continuous albuterol treatment. Luckily, we didn't have to do it but I hope that convinces you that it wont hurt her to do the treatments more often. Obviously, if you're needing to do this, she needs to be seen soon.

Her resp. rate sounds OK. Another thing to watch for is retractions. Watch her lower ribs on her sides to see if the skin sucks in around the ribs when she breathes. That shows that she's working too hard to breathe. Also, the dry, hacky cough is not good. Loose prodcutive cough is good. If she's not getting better, take her in, ask a lot of questions. It can be so scary and you want to know what to do. Good luck and I hope she's better soon.

I have 2 daughters with asthma they have had it since they were infants. Do you have anything new in the house that could of triggered this in your daughter? pets, plants with dirt, and new carpet can trigger asthma.
where do you live? also if you have been using chemicals like bleach that might be a problem.
I never knew if teething would set off wheezing sounds like allergies.

Definitely get her to an allergist. They can give you an asthma action plan for when she is sick. We keep Orapred at home for when my kids are in the "red zone". If you are ever worried that she won't make it through the night, take her to the ER. They can give her oxygen, and steroids if necessary.

Perhaps asthma is over diagnosed, but I would rather take that chance than ignoring it. Whether or not she does have it, you need to make sure she can get through these episodes safely. Good luck.

Take her into a small bathroom and run the shower on hot and stay in there for 10-15 min. I would also be using a warm mist humidifier in her room every night. My doctor swears by them so we use them in our 16 month olds room every night. For the teething side of it....I give 1 tsp. of kids motrin and I also use Hyland's Teething tablets. They sell the tablets at Walgreens and I prefer them to Oragel. Plus...she likes to put them in her mouth herself. Good luck!

Hi L.,
I know it's pretty scary....our son (17 mos) has asthma and we just use albuterol when he's got a cold and that usually keep things in check. On Monday afternoon he had more of an attack, of course it was right after the doctor's office closed. I gave him a breathing treatment but he wasn't much better. I called the exchange and talked to a nurse because I wasn't sure how often we could give him a treatment. She had us give him another treatment (ended up being about 45 min after the first one), and then another one 20 minutes after that. He was a little better at that point, so we didn't need to do anything more dramatic, but they wanted us to give him treatment every 4 hours through the night (which we did in his crib w/o waking him up). If he hadn't been better, my guess is they would have given us some steroids.

A humidifier in the room is also a good thing as well as sitting in the bathroom with a hot shower running to help.

Good luck!
R. J

Saline and a bulb syringe will do more than the breathing treatments. Most Dr. over prescribe albuterol for nasal congestion. If a treatment doesn't relieve the wheezing then suck out her nose, and humidify, humidify, humidify. I wouldn't start doubling up treatments unless you get a true asthma diagnosis, you can end up with a rebound effect, causing the thing you are trying to fix. Suck out her nose every 2-4 hours as needed, then try the albuterol if she is still wheezing. Her breathing rate is ok, pay more attention to her breathing when she sleeps, she should fall into a normal resting rate 18-30 breaths per minute. The albuterol will make her heart race and therefore make her breathing faster, so it can make you think it isn't working when in fact these are side effects.

My daughter is having similar issues, and we recently had to start her on Prednisone since the Albuterol breathing treatments aren't doing the trick. A friend whose daughter has asthma recommended that we see an allergist, and I plan to do that ASAP. It's very scary, I know! Don't give up on figuring out what's going on. Get a second opinion or see a specialist if you aren't getting the answers you need. Good luck.

she can have the breathing treatment 4 times a day and believe me you will notice a difference and if you don't within 3-4 days I would take her back for another xray. sometimes pneumonia doesn't show up for a few days.

All 3 of my kids have had to use the nebulizer at some time with wheezing. 1st had Bronchialitis which was diagnosed as Asthma as he got older but his breathing problems started at 3 months of age and they didn't give us a nebulizer until he was 8 years old so it was really annoying that I had to take him in every few days for a treatment when it was really bad and usually every 2 weeks for a treatment when he was just coughing. I really like the nebulizer better than using inhalers and so do my kids. Even though inhalers are fast acting they make them feel whoozy and the nebulizer takes a lot longer but doesn't make them feel drugged afterwards. My oldest has had to take strong steroid inhalers before and really didn't like those when he was 3 or 4 years old.

It could be some allergy triggering this and if you have a lot of carpet in your house don't let her sleep on the floor as carpet floors hold a lot of dust. Also if you recently got a new pet it could be a pet allergy.

Another thing that helps is the steamy bathroom after someone takes a shower. Take your baby in the bathroom and let her breath the steam.

A cold mist humidifier in her room. The heat ones actually set it in deeper so you want to use a cool mist one.

Check your windows for mold. Aluminum windows tend to get more mold when there is a lot of condensation which happens more in the winter.

It is a bit scarry but hopefully hers is seasonal and not a constant cough like my son had from 3 months until he was almost 2 when we actually moved to another state and his breathing got a lot better. We lived in California when he was born and his breathing got better when we moved to Washington State. Then we moved to Missouri and TN and his breathing problems were more in the winter and early spring. We also lived in Georgia where all 3 of the kids had breathing problems A LOT which is when we got the nebulizer to be used for all 3 of them. Now we are back in Missouri and our oldest 2 haven't had any problems for several years and youngest seems to need the nebulizer in the fall months but it does help a lot as he will use it for about a week and not need it anymore for a while. Basically when he starts coughing a lot he starts using it and within a few days you can tell a difference in his cough not being constant.

If you are burning wood for heat. STOP because that is probably what is causing it. We tried to burn wood one winter and our son was so bad and wheezing and barking like a seal when he coughed.. It was horrible and the doctor was having a hard time figuring out the trigger because he was totally fine then it hit suddenly and was taking him to the doctor for a checkup every week with the doc calling often to see how he was doing. Well one visit I asked him if he thought burning wood was healthy and he said that is very unhealthy and to stop immediately. Well within 2 days our son stopped wheezing and barking like a seal and got so much better. We then bought ceramic heaters for each room and never burnt wood again. In fact that summer we had a new heat pump put in our house so we didn't have that issue the next winter at all.

Now when he goes on campouts I know he is going to be around a campfire and he tends to start coughing but you can't keep a boy away from the fun of a bon-fire so he just knows he will have to deal with the coughing for about a week after the fun. I make sure he packs an inhaler just in case of an asthma attack but so far he hasn't needed to use it when he is on trips.

also don't use cough suppressants for medication. You want her coughing the stuff up and suppressants keep it from coming up and trap all the junk in and could go to the lungs.

you can use benedryl for her runny nose but wouldn't use cough meds.

I also noticed that when my kids were wheezing bad and decided to take them to the ER that getting outside in the cold from the car to the hospital they wouldn't be wheezing at all by the time we got them to the hospital and of course feel like an idiot because they can't find anything wrong and wonder why you are in the ER. That happened so many times sometimes we would get to the hospital and notice they quit wheezing and went back home so sometimes getting out in the cold air for a minute helps.

Try to vacuum everyday and keep dust down.