I've got a bad case of doubting you!
Took my oldest to the doctor today because a dry cough he'd been having on and off for the past oh, six/eight weeks. Now when I say on and off I mean the following - sometimes (3 out of 10 days) he'll wake up in the night coughing. And if he runs around outside and gets all sweaty and worked up (4 out of 10 times) he'll have the dry cough for about 40 min - hour afterward. Or, as it was today, the cough occurs for no reason at all.
I've tried tracking his diet, cleaning his room of dust using only a weak vinegar solution, eliminating foods, upping foods, keeping a vaporizer going at night, etc. etc. As you can probably tell, I am not the type of mom who runs to the doctor as every sniffle and snuffle. But, it was getting to me because it kept happening no matter what I did. So I made a drs appointment.
Prior to going to the doctor, I actually came upon a few websites that talked about exercise-induced asthma. Wow, I said to myself, this is exactly what Mr. Mookie (our baby name for him) has! And it doesn't happen all the time, and athletes get it too. What's the treatment? Well, in my reading, I found a few sites that suggest a natural remedy is to increase the intake of vitamin C. That's basically what I kenw when I stepped into the doctor's office.
It must have been a bad week for me, and I was totally unprepared (like I usually am for drs. visits, or maybe it was Friday Afternoon) but I walked out of the office with a nebulizer and a script for Xopenex. YES! I was so duh in that office, thinking that the dr. had my child's best interest at heart. Maybe so, but this is what I found out about Xopenex:
It can be part of long term treatment for severe asthma
Xopenex Solution should be used with extreme caution in CHILDREN younger than 6 years old; safety and effectiveness in these children have not been confirmed.
Side effects in children include: Diarrhea, fever, headache, hives, increased asthma symptoms, muscle pain, rash, runny nose, sore throat, swollen glands, viral infection, weakness
Additionally, a nebulizer should not be the first line of treatment for exercise induced asthma - an inhaled medication, taken 15 min before exercising/running around should be.
So, looks like Mr. Mookie will be on his vitamin C regemin (sp?) and I will be returning the nebulizer with a note. I suppose I'll be out of my 25 bucks, but that's the cost of NOT knowing what's going on before I go into the drs. office. What a shame that some drs. must use a sledgehammer to tap in a picture nail. These drugs are so powerful and the side effects seem worse than the minor cough that he's been having. Mind you now, he hasn't coughed at night for the past couple of days and only cough a lot where I noticed it at a party on Sunday, this was of course after he 1) refused to eat anything 2) ran around and hollered like a maniac 3)got all sweaty (as boys will do). He coughed for about 30 min and then it was over. Of course, I was all tense about it but what can you do?
I am certianly not going to put my child on such a severe course of treatment for an occasional cough. Certainly, if he were wheezing, couldn't really catch his breath or showed other, more severe symptoms, I'd be hooking that nebulizer up in a sec!!
We're going to try the Vit. c. therapy and see how it goes.
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2 comments:
I thought my son had asthma also. In fact, I was convinced of it. I never doubt my pediatricians, and I doubted them when they told me it wasn't asthma. His symptoms were exactly as you describe for your son. I ran the cool mist humidifier. That didn't work. I ran the warm-mist humidifier, similar results. When he was given a prescription for Zyrtec to treat 'allergies', I was doubtful. It worked. I only use it when he starts coughing, and I haven't had to use it since the initial dosing from the prescription about 4 months ago. Maybe you want to look into that.
Thank you for the information. I like the fact that your drs. gave you something to treat it "on the spot" so to speak rather than an ongoing therapy of a rather strong medication. I think I will inquire into Zyrtec when I return the nebulizer!
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