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View Full Version : Frustrated - nothing seems to help Kasey with her asthma!!!



momathome
04-03-2003, 11:03 PM
Ugh!!! Kasey (25 months old) was diagnosed with asthma and a dust mite allergy in November. It took two different specialists and 3 pediatricians 21 months to finally diagnose her, even though she was showing symptoms from the time she was born. Once she was diagnosed, she was put on Singulair, Zyrtec, and Albuterol through a nebulizer. We also give her Delsym to try to help with her coughing. Any time she gets a cold, it lasts 4-6 weeks and causes her asthma to flare up again. She had recently been sick from mid-February to mid-March and was just miserable - coughing so hard she was throwing up. We took her back to her specialist during then and she gave us a steroid called Pulmicort to add to the Albuterol in the nebulizer. The specialist also told us that any time she gets a normal run-of-the-mill cold that clears up in most people in a few days, for her it will probably last a "good" month. Last time I checked, kids get colds all the time. None of the medications we give her ever really seem to help. She had been healthy the past two weeks and then she woke up this morning clearly infected with the cold that I started with earlier this week. I'm just so frustrated. There's got to be something to keep her from feeling this miserable - I'm also now dreading what will surely be another month of misery. Plus, I feel guilty that I'm the one who got her sick this time! Does anyone have any good suggestions for something we haven't tried? Otherwise, thanks for listening to my rant...
-Lauren

todzwife
04-04-2003, 12:13 AM
OH Lauren, I am so sorry that Kasey has to go through that! I have asthma, and although it isn't severe like your daughter's, it is really a pain. I didn't actually get it until I was about 10 after I had had a major bronchial infection. I have no ideas on how to help her, but I wanted to offer my sympathy. :) Hope she feels better soon!
Shandelle ;)

sweetbasil
04-04-2003, 12:30 AM
Lauren,
No really good suggestions from here- we do the Pulmicort, albuterol, xopenex trio each winter, but this winter was the best yet. DS's ped prescribed him Singulair, and he's taken it preventatively since November and only had 2 weeks of nebulizer treatments. One thing I've mentioned before (Nicole had an asthma post in late March) was, if you don't already know, that corticosteroids (like pulmicort) have a risk for causing thrush, or a yeast infection in baby's mouth, after being taken. We always make sure to brush DS's teeth AND tongue after a breathing treatment- we'll avoid that extra trauma at any cost!

Feel free to e-mail if you ever need to vent, hear from another mom with an asthmatic toddler (I'm a former asthmatic myself), etc.

Best wishes,

flagger
04-04-2003, 01:01 AM
I have adult onset asthma. I wonder does a two year old have to use the nebulizer only or would an inhaled steroid work directly? I use Advair now and my need for the rescue inhaler (Proventil HFA) has dropped to very little use.

There is nothing worse than the feeling of breathing through a straw so I feel for you baby since I know what it is like.

My PFT (Peak Flows) are always very low but since I started on the Advair they have been much better.

sweetbasil
04-04-2003, 09:17 AM
Flagger,
A friend of mine who is finishing his residency in peds says that the Xopenex via nebulizer is really about the same thing as the albuterol inhaler- just longer to deliver and much more expensive. But since we already had the xopenex in the past, that's what we used (with the pulmicort), and then the albuterol as DH's breathing seemed labored...

Good luck w/your asthma. Adult onset is no fun- it runs in my family but I'm hoping since I had it as a child and it hasn't flared up too much, that it's going away.

momathome
04-04-2003, 02:15 PM
Julie,
Do you think the Xopenex helps/makes a difference? That is one we have not tried. Before Kasey went to bed last night, we gave her Singulair, Zyrtec, Delsym, and Albuterol and Pulmicort through the nebulizer. I hate pumping all of these drugs into a baby but at this point I am just desperate to give her anything that might help her. Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts!
-Lauren

twins r fun
04-04-2003, 03:08 PM
Hi Lauren,

I've been reading this thread, but my son was officially diagnosed with asthma less than a week ago so I can't help much. He has also been given Xopenex (which I thought was the same as albuterol until I read your post but apparently it's not!). If you do a google search using the words xopenex (and) albuterol, there's a couple articles about their effectiveness. Here's one, but I don't know anything about the site and it authority in this www.pslgroup.com/dg/2140ee.htm

Also my son was prescribed (by a pediatric pulmonologist) a Flovent inhaler for daily use. Like I said, I'm new to this so don't know if it's effective or not, but have you tried this or anything similar?

Nicole

gravymommy3
04-04-2003, 06:50 PM
One of the main benefits of xopenex over albuterol is that it tends to NOT increase the heart rate as much. When my little one was in the hospital at 3 months of age for bronchiolitis, she could not tolerate the albuterol, but did fine on the xopenex (which is a isomeric derivative of albuterol.)

As far as the neb. versus aerochamber administration of albuterol, my ped (and the ped pulmonoligist we were referred to) declares it much more beneficial to administer via the nebulizer. He says it just gets down deeper into the lungs and tends to be much more effective. I remember my mother (who suffered from COPD) getting more relief from the nebulizer than from an inhaler. I also remember her getting very shaky after taking the albuterol (this was before xopenex was released) because of the increased heartrate.

My oldest child suffers from asthma and she is on singulair orally(which helps), flovent inhaler(also helpful), and when she starts wheezing, xopenex via neb. If she gets really far gone, they start her on orapred.

Good luck on getting a handle on this - it is not the most fun thing to deal with!!

sweetbasil
04-05-2003, 10:45 PM
Lauren,
The xopenex has the same results on DS's breathing as the albuterol, it's just a longer process to administer. But if we're already doing the Pulmicort nebulizer treatment, we're fine to go ahead with the xopenex, too (if he's already sitting there....)

Singulair has been great for DS, but I've heard from several friends (and read) that it can have a side effect of bad dreams. He's had an increased amt. of those since he started, but it's tough to know (for us, anyway), if that's his age, he's starting to notice things more, friends are playing monster with him (which I don't really LOVE- he's so innocent, then they run around jumping out and scaring him--- sorry about the tangent)...anyway, that might be something to watch for.

We've done the zyrtec too, and that has helped, as has nasonex. Coming from parents who take prescribed allergy meds daily and have both been on shots in the past, we figure that's just part of the raw end of the deal for him. But he's a trooper, and everything seems to be working....

Good luck, and feel free to e-mail if you ever need an ear (eye? I've gotta get my "virtual" terminology down)!

momathome
04-06-2003, 04:47 PM
Thanks, Julie! I appreciate the support! I just wish there was a drug that brought Kasey some real relief - nothing we give her ever seems to make a real difference.
-Lauren