4 Yr Old - Frequent Colds, Allergies, Nebulizer

I have a son (4.5 years old) that has asthma and his flare ups are mostly illness induced. Before we knew he had asthma, it would seem like his colds/coughs would last forever. If he had a cold, he might still be coughing 2 weeks after the congestion part of the cold was gone. His fraternal twin brother, on the other hand, would get the cold and have very little coughing.

After he was diagnosed with asthma, we started doing nebulizer treatments with a preventative/maintenance medication. It wasn't Advair, but it was a similar type medicine (budesonide/pulmicort) for kids in nebulizer form. We also have albuterol nebulizer medicine that we give as needed.

Our approach is to give him one treatment a day during the sick season. So this is typically fall/winter, but we tend to do it during the school year. If he shows signs of getting sick, we bump it up to 2-3 times a day for the maintenance medication. In the summer, we stop the treatments unless he gets sick. Only if he has some wheezing or some sudden bad coughing do we give him an albuterol treatment.

If we keep on top of this strategy he has very little, if any coughing at the end of the cold. It is so much better.

In case you are not aware the difference between a maintenance medicine and albuterol is that the maintenance medicine works to prevent or reduce the asthma symptoms from occurring whereas albuterol tries to alleviate the symptoms after the fact. Depending on how severe the symptoms have gotten, battling them back can be difficult.

If you haven't taken your daughter to a pediatric allergist/asthma specialist, I would recommend seeing one.

It's a bit of a hassle having to set aside time for nebulizer treatments, but the quality of life improvement in my son has been worth it. We also have a rescue inhaler (albuterol) we take with us when we are out and about just in case, but it's rare that we actually need it. When he gets older, he will do his preventative medicine in a puffer/inhaler as well, but for now we feel the nebulizer treatments ensure he actually gets the medicine in his lungs.

Hi S.,

Yes of course it's okay for dads to post!

I really feel for you and for your child. I went through a lot of this as an adult - allergies and colds always turned into a deep chest cough and bronchitis. I had 3-4 cases per year, each of which lasted a 3-4 weeks. I never slept because of all the coughing, and of course the exhaustion made it all worse. And I had allergies all year round, worse in the spring and fall but still present (dust, molds, animals). Like you, I hated the drugs but felt I had no choice but to do them.

When my son became very ill, the head of wellness at his school was instrumental in getting him back on his feet. He had done a lot of training in this because he had a son much like your daughter - sick 3 weeks out of 4, pretty much attached to the nebulizer, just miserable. His wife also had terrible allergies - shots and meds and still walked around with a box of tissues under her arm.

I learned about proper and comprehensive supplementation. We had always done typical vitamins as well as high-end stuff from the chiropractor, but never had appreciable results. We did what this fellow did - his child is completely allergy free and virtually never sick anymore. We haven't had a sick visit in 5 years, I'm off all my allergy meds, and I haven't had any bronchitis at all. I've been to quite a few seminars and have met lots of people who've gotten results with their asthma as well, regardless of whether it was triggered by exercise or colds.

Since then, there's been even more work done on the subject of epigenetics - have you heard about this? It's been written up in all the magazines, been on Dr. Oz and the medical shows, and so on. Well researched, multiple studies, strong nutritional link to helping genes function as they are supposed to rather than being weak links in the chain. I'd be happy to give you some more info/links on immune system boosting. If you'd like to chat with this other dad, I can facilitate that as well. There is plenty of hope!

I don't have any answers (sorry) but wanted you to know that YES, it is absolutely ok for dad's to post here too. We've had a few become "regulars" over the years... :)
Welcome.

This sounds exactly like my daughter who is now 7. They even used the same term "cold induced asthma". The only difference is that she would also get an ear infection with every cold/cough. It seemed to us that she was always sick and even our friends would comment that she seemed to always have a cough. We stayed on the maintenance medication for the nebulizer (Pulmicort - like was mentioned below) for years! When she was 4, our doctor finally told us that it wasn't normal for her to be sick so often and she started running tests. And what it turned out to be with our daughter is that she never developed immunity to one of the vaccines she was given (Prevnar). So she had to go through another round of vaccinations (and got Pneumovax) and they monitored her immunity for a while. She has been so much better since that additional vaccination. We have had to use the nebulizer maybe three times since then. Good luck! I would go with your gut and ask for additional tests and/or take her to a asthma specialist. It could be like the other poster mentioned that your daughter needs to stay on a maintenance medication for the nebulizer - not just Albuterol which is more like a rescue medication.