Can someone tell me about babies and asthma and/or atrovent inhalers?

[strawberrycornetto]

I am hoping for some advice from mummies of childre with asthma.

My DS who is 10 months old had two lots of bronchiolitis and pneumonia before Christmas. At the time we were given an atrovent inhaler and told we could use it again if he got another cold and got wheezy.

He went back to nusery this week and he has of course immediately picked up a bug. He's not coughing as much as before but he's really congested and his chest sounds terrible. He's so wheezy, he sounds like he's constantly panting, a bit like my grandmother who has shortness of breath due to her bloodpressure tablets! He does seem well in himself though and he's very active.

I know its difficult to diagnose asthma in babies, but I wondered if anyone out there has a child who had similar symptoms as a baby. Does it sound like he's asthmatic? I should say he has eczema and food allergies so he is at risk. Is it ok for me to use the atrovent inhaler? Will it stop him from getting really sick again like last time? Are there any side effects? The hospital didn't give us any advice on this.

Thanks!

[lubblyjubblies]

From my experience in smaller kids they are loathe to diagnosis asthma before about 3 yrs. It sounds like viral wheeze, which is basically the same symptoms as asthma but they only appear with viral infection, rather than more typical triggers of allergies and exercise as in tyopical asthma. There are lots in here, me included who have little ones with wheeze/coughs and I'm positive just about all of them suffered bronchiolitis as babies.
Kids can and often do outgrow these problems but from personal experience it can be a quite sever problem in the mean time.
DS suffers from viral wheeze and persistant bronchitis and whilst we get a small window of good health in the summer winters so far have been appalling with lots of admissions.
DS's sisted has excema and DH has hayfever so DS is at risk of proper asthma but inly time will tell.
Please let me know if you want to know anything else. I'm sure DS is a quite severe case though and dont want to scare you

[Sam100]

Can't help with babies as our dd did not get diagnosed with problems until she was 2 - but has been on various inhalers and other treatments since then (now 5). If you are at all unsure of how/when to use the inhaler then go back to your gp and they should be happy to explain. Your surgery may even have a specialist asthma nurse you could see. Our dd had a brown preventitive inhaler which she took every day and a blue reliever inhaler which we were told to give her if she was wheezy (usually when she had a virus) - she is now on different meds.

LJ is right they prob will not diagnose asthma until your ds is older. Our dd has been on meds since 2 - does not seem to have any ill effects (they keep her healthy and out of hospital - had 4 in-patient stays over 6 months before she started the meds). If he is taking meds over any period of time they will probably monitor ds for height and weight to make sure on track.

[strawberrycornetto]

Thank you, that's helpful. It does definitely sound like a viral wheeze as Lubbly describes.

I am seeing the GP on Monday with him to get a private referral because the NHS cannot follow up on the pneumonia until the summer which isn't much use! I will ask him about the atrovent then.

I guess there's nothing I can do to help or stop it? It just goes right through me, hearing him struggle with breathing like he does