Asthma? Allergies? Chronic Cough--2 Year Old

As others have said, it sounds similar to my son's cough-induced asthma. He was diagnosed at age 2. If you haven't already seen a specialist, I would recommend you see a pediatric pulmonologist and/or pediatric allergist. They can give you much more information. My son sees a pediatric pulmonologist I highly recommend; he and his colleagues have offices in Minneapolis, St. Paul and Minnetonka. Let me know if you need a recommendation. Good luck.

With a simple blood test for blood cell count should show if it is an infection or if it is needing antibodic.

If the coughing is worse at night, prop up her head more, coughing usually does get worse at night whether it is asthma or a cold. I use to take my son and daughter who both have asthma, outside when they would have coughing. If it cleared it up it was more asthmatic, also caffine would help with breathing, so some warm tea or even a bit of coffee would help breathing if it were asthma. I use to keep Mt Dew on hand when we would go camping so if there was too much trouble, it would help some until we got back to town.

You might clear his room of stuffed animals and other dust collectors. Also put a air cleaner or even a humidifier in there if it is really dry.

My daughter had the same thing, a cough for 2 months...and then a pediatrician I work with decided to give her an inhaler to use. It really helped and after a couple days, the cough was better. We also have her on Zyrtec but it makes her tired. Usually you can't tell if a child's symptoms are asthma until they are at least the age of your child. It could be that since she has the nut allergy but interesting she doesn't wheeze. Either way, with the allergies she already has, Zyrtec or Claritin couldn't hurt since she probablly has other allergies too.

She seems to have a relapse.
Usually they recommend an inhaler.
Make sure it is not Bronchitis or something...

"wheezing" in a child per asthma, is not always present.
The asthma symptoms in a child, is different sometimes.

Claritin, is fine.
Zyrtec is similar.... but not all antihistimines work for everyone... thus, some people take Claritin, some take Zyrtec. Each person being different.

If she has a sinus infection.... there will be post-nasal drip... down the throat. It can sometimes then, cause a lung infection.... because of the mucous. I had that happen to me before. I have Asthma as well. In my case, it turned into a bronchitis and then Pneumonia. All started by a head-cold.

"Coughing" can be caused by 2 things:
1) a head-cold... because post-nasal drip causes coughing and throat irritation
2) a lung/chest cold or infection.
Thus, a "cough" does not always indicate that the origin is the chest, per say.

Her cough is probably worse at night because she is laying down... thus, the mucous just sits there and gets stuck in her throat.

Watch her and make sure she does not have any fever. A fever would indicate an infection or a secondary infection....

Yes, take her to the Doctor again.

all the best,
Susan

She could have what is called 'cough induced asthma'. There is no wheezing present with it. My son had this at the same age as your daughter. Colds and illness would trigger it and he would cough and cough and cough well beyond the run of the illness. The doctor finally diagnosed cough induced asthma and put him on an inhalor. Whenever the coughing would start, he would get a few inhalor treatments over the course of a day or two and the cough would go away and he would be fine. Allergies and asthma do often go hand in hand and they do run in my family very heavily. My son does not have allergies though, just the asthma. For someone as young as your daughter, they can also prescribe albuterol syrup, which is also used as a cough syrup. The doctor can tell by how well she responds to this if it is asthma or not as albuterol is also the medicine that is used in inhalors.

Have her tested for Mycoplasma. If your peds office does not test for it, perhaps change to one that does. Mycoplasma will resolve itself eventually, however there are antibiotics that will clear it up in days. I know that Edina Peds and MD Family Walk-In Clinic (Edina, MN) tests for Myco. Give them a call if your regular pediatrician does not provide this test.

My 3 yr. old son has asthma and allergies to pets. From what I've learned wheezing doesn't have to be present to be asthma. Also coughing more at night is an indication of asthma, although my son has never really coughed at night. I learned to skip right over my regular ped and went straight to a specialist. I took my son to an ashtma/allergy specialist as well as a pediatric pulmonologist. I would recommend seeing a ped pulmonologist, they get right to the bottom of things. It sounds most likely like allergies and I think a lot of the other mom's suggestions on medications sound helpful for you. Best wishes.

My daughter had a cough mostly at night. She would go through phases of coughing at night only that usually lasted 4 to 6 weeks....many sleepless nights, so I can relate. When she was 4 an on-call ped gave me some cough syrph with codine (mostly so we could all get some sleep...we were all very sleep deprived at that point) and it was a godsend. I finally got some sleep. I used it only when I absolutely needed to and it lasted almost a year. This isn't something peds like to give out...so I didn't feel I could ask for more. Anyway...the coughat night came back again in March. I talked to her dr. at her yearly appointment and she felt it was allergies. Told me to try Zyrtec. Started her on it and things didn't get much better. Dr. told me to wait a week and if it didn't help she would prescribe a nose spray. So I called after a week and got flonase. It has been great. After about 2-3 days no more coughing. So now she gets Zyrtec and flonase every day and we have not had anymore sleepless nights unless I forget to give her the medicine, which I have a few times. The nose spray helps with the nasal drip which is causing the coughing at night. My dr. told me to do this through the spring...so in a couple of weeks I'm going to try to wean her off and see how it goes.

Children at this age tend to put everything in their mouth and near their nose's which can cause virus's and colds. Now I know this is an old fashioned thinking but both of my children had "colds" running noses and coughs because of the mucus running down the back of the throat because they were cutting molars. The Dr I had would check to make sure it wasn't an infection and put them on a medication that would dry him up during these periods. After about 10 days they were back to normal without the coughing..since he isn't wheezing I would probably rule out asthma but since allergy's are already an issue it wouldn't surprise me that she has seasonal allergies. If you are not satisfied with the answers you are getting it might be time to seek a new physician.

When that happens in our house, it is usually sinus infection. The night time coughing is caused by drainage of the sinuses down the throat. If you insurance allows it, I'd go to an Ear Nose Throat. I feel like they are much better at diagnosing and treating those.

We just went through the same thing with my son, but in the opposite order. The first and second Dr we saw insisted it was allergies and put him on Zyrtec and then switched it to Claritin after 3 weeks of the cough not getting better. I finally took him to a 3rd Dr who said it was a sinus infection and put him on Azithromycin (sp?) and that took care of the problem. Maybe she just needs something stronger than Amoxicillan. It probably was just from catching the cold again, or not quite being over it in the first place. The 3rd Dr asked if his eyes were itchy, and was he sneezing a lot. Both of those were a no for us, so that ruled out allergies.
Good Luck!

Sounds just like my son's cough induced asthma. A few times a year, usually spring and fall, though runny noses or colds always morph into a bad cough, too... which is horrible when he goes to bed...to the point that he cannot sleep. They have classified it as asthma, but there is never wheezing or asthma symptoms....just an awful cough that persists until we bust out the nebulizer - which clears it up immediately. For some reason asthma does tend to flare up during the night in kids. As long as we neb him immediately when he gets a cough...and supplement it with a children's allergy med we have no problems. I believe he will outgrow it as it started about 1 1/2 years old and seems to bother him less and less...though he sleeps next to a portable HEPA filter which has really helped!

When my son was first diagnosed with asthma our pediatrician immediately referred us to the asthma/allergy clinic at our local children's hospital. He also had a chronic cough & no wheezing. Actually it was his 1st grade teacher who told me that he needed to see a doctor. Asthma runs in her family, so she recognized the cough. Although it is mild, my son's asthma is triggered by allergies & cold or flu viruses. He takes zyrtec and uses an inhaler daily. If I were you I would see a specialist.

My daughter experienced a dry cough whenever she was coming down with or had an ear infection. Have here ears been checked?

just a side thought. Do your daughters initial symptoms of a "cold" coincide with cleaning the house? Chemicals and cleaning supplies can cause asthma. If you think this is the case contact me. I think I can help.

Have you tried a cold air humidifer, raising the head of the mattress or pillow, saline nasal spray and local honey?

We are going through the same thing with my daughter. I recently posted a question about dairy allergy. Had my daughter allergy tested and she has several food allergies including peanut, dairy, wheat, eggs, as well as grass, weeds and dogs. She has had a chronic cough and runny nose for months. Seeing an allergist next week. Switched her to rice milk, taking zyrtec, and omnarius nose spray. Seems to be helping. Trust your instincts. Get a second opinion!