Moms with Toddlers on Breathing Treatments for Asthma

Most two year olds have runny noses for the whole winter! If you think milk is the culprit just stop it. When you say fever, is it always or just the start of
a cold. I would not lose sleep over this. He is a toddler and they get colds; more often than we would like.

You can always seek a second opinion. From the time my daughter was 2 until 5, everytime she got a cold she would get a really bad croupy cough last would last for weeks.Every pediatrician we would see would just say that it was part of the cold and would go away just keep using a humidifier. And we saw a few different pediatricians due to insurance changes, relocating, etc. Finally, the last pediatrician began treating her as an asthmatic, prescribed us a nebulizer and an inhaler and it has made a world of difference. She still gets a really bad cough, but if I catch it in time, it is significantly better with the treatments. I too was frustrated that I felt unheard and treated like I was overreacting and was glad once I found a doctor who was willing to look further into it. Good luck!

My son had (has) asthma. It was accompanied by eczema, colds, sniffles - the gamut of symptoms. It took pediatricians until he was 2 years old to officially diagnose him with asthma. Now, we all knew what it was, he was treated for asthma, but no one wanted to label him with asthma at such a young age thanks to possible insurance complications (like being denied coverage) later in life.

We have had a nebulizer in the house for the past 15 years - got the first one when he was 6 months old and had RSV. Many of his asthma attacks, at first, were bronchial asthma that were off shoots of a plain cold, so we treated the symptoms of the cold and added breathing treatments. As he grew, his asthma would be triggered by allergies, colds, and physical exertion, so we began to carry an inhaler. - the child played soccer for several years in spite of this.

What changed our world, and finally helped me learn to manage his asthma, was taking him to see a pediatric allergist who was also one of only 2 doctors in my area that specialized in pediatric asthma. He introduced knew regimes that significantly helped my son. But this did not happen until he was 2 years old. Also an age when several preventative medications can begin being taken.

So, open a dialog with your pediatrician, do a ton of research on pediatric asthma so you can have an informed discussion with him. I researched treatments and preventive alternatives and with my doctor's "blessing" we tried herbals, and alternate treatments.

If you feel that you are not being heard by your current doctor - find another one, or find a specialist that deals with asthma in young children. A dermatologist can also help with the eczema.

Keep advocating for your child. Asthma is manageable - my son, at 15 now, has outgrown most of it and rarely suffers an attack.

Good Luck
God Bless

It is pretty common for toddlers with asthma to require the use of an inhaler or nebulizer throughout the entire cold and flu season. However if you suspect something else is going on perhaps you can pursue allergy testing without the blessing of your child's pediatrician. Find out what your insurance will and will not cover, whether or not you need a referral, etc. If your current pediatrician makes you feel like he/she is not listening to you or taking you seriously then perhaps you should look for a different pediatrician. On a different note consider eliminating milk while your child is sick. Not necessarily because of the risk of allergy but because clear fluids are much more helpful during an illness. Good luck with this!

I guess one question is - do the nebulizer breathing treatments help? If your son breaths better when you are giving him breathing treatments exactly as the doctor is recommending, then this is a good treatment for him because it works. And you should keep it up until he is really feeling better, for more than just a day or t wo.

However, there are some things you can try yourself to sort out the causes in the meantime. For example, if you have any concern that he might have a milk allergy, then stop giving him milk for a month and see what happens. Substitute rice milk for anything you would normally make with milk, and put rice milk in his sippy cup to drink, rice milk on his cereal, etc. It won't hurt, and if his eczema clears up and his nose stops running, you'll know for yourself.

You could also read about dust mite allergies, and preventative measures for those. You could also try that yourself, without a doctor's help. It consists of things like washing his bedding weekly in hot water, putting a dust cover over his pillow, etc.

Obviously your child has allergies if he has eczema. I don't think most allergist would do skin testing until sometime after age 2. I would take him to an allergist now though. He could maybe give you something for the eczema to help and it's possible they could do a blood test to see about some allergy as they did this with our grandsons when they were 2 and it showed what they were bothered by without doing the skin test. Maybe that's not as accurate but could give you a place to start. They also gave them a shot for the immunity and that seemed to help a lot.

If it were up to our pediatrician, I'd still be giving my almost 7 year old daily nebulizers...and I haven't given her one in at LEAST a year and a half. Even before, I had cut WAY back...she overprescribed, or underdiagnosed, or whatever you want to call it.

My daughter "did" have asthma, eczema, etc...but as I stated, I haven't given her a treatment in really almost two years and she hasn't had a single flair up with the asthma. She does sometimes have small, minor breakouts of eczema which I treat with regular baby lotion and she's fine. It's just some hope that your son can outgrow this...hopefully he will.

If you are concerned that there is something else going on, see a different doctor to get a referral for the allergist. Good luck!

I have two sons with asthma. After the first bad season we started seeing a pulmary (sp?) Dr and that has made all the difference. Our sons are both on signular witch helps with the allergy induced asthma. And we have all the meds on hand to treat them with out having to go into the Dr. This Dr gives us his cellphone number and also his staff is reachable 24/7.

Maybe its time to move on to a Dr that is going to be more proactive to your needs? We had to switch our family Dr to someone that was more proactive and willing to work hand and hand with the lung Dr. It has made all the difference.

We see the Dr way less and our kids stay healthier now during the fall and winter months.