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Child Coughs Until Vomits With Phlegm, Worse During Cold. Is It Just Asthma?
Question: Hi I have a son born on 8/24/2009 I give the date because I want to give you his exact age. My son went to many pediatrician they cannot find anything wrong with him besides possible ashma. For some reason they cannot call it ashma yet when he is still young you can probably explain this one to me. Well anyways my son every other night cough and cough until he vomit. Every other night he does this almost every other night. He has been doing this ever since one year old. I also hear alot of phlem before he does this. In his vomit I would see phlem/mucus 70 percent of the time. It is worse during winter or when he has a cold. I have to clean up alot of vomit every other night. No doctor I've seen has give me a straight answer of why this is physically occuring to him. He likes to drink milk before he goes to bed then 4 or 5 hours into his sleep, he throws up. He seems to throw up around 2 am. Please I really need an expert opinion about this. If you are not sure please leave it to other doctor on this website who does instead of guessing. Thank you for your understanding. This is a very concerning issue. I hope someone can help me and my pediatrician out. Thank you in advance.
Hi,
Thanks for posting the query on XXXXXXX
After going through your query, I would like to comment the following.
1. Your child seems to be suffering from childhood asthma. However it is very difficult to distinguish it from viral bronchitis of childhood till the age of 3 to 5 years, after which the viral bronchitis of childhood subsides but childhood asthma persists. This asthma of childhood normally persists till adolescence or up to the age of 18 years after which it is controlled. It is therefore that till the age of 3 to 5 years many doctors refrain from labeling the child as asthmatic.
2. The treatment of both the conditions is not very different and inhalers via a spacer and a baby mask need to be given along with some oral bronchodilator medicines.
3. Once his asthma is adequately controlled, then his current symptom of phlegm production will subside.
4. You need to get your child examined by a pediatric pulmonologist if available. Some of the investigations that are advisable are chest xray, blood counts and serum IgE levels.
5. Proton pump inhibitor class of anta acid medicines will help in decreasing the incidence of vomiting in the night as the possibility of reflux GERD worsening in supine position cannot be ruled out.
6. Try to change the timing of giving the milk to the child rather than giving it just before sleeping.
I hope I have answered your query. I will be glad to answer follow up queries if any.
Please accept my answer if you have no follow up queries.
Regards
Dr. Gyanshankar Mishra
MBBS MD DNB
Thanks for posting the query on XXXXXXX
After going through your query, I would like to comment the following.
1. Your child seems to be suffering from childhood asthma. However it is very difficult to distinguish it from viral bronchitis of childhood till the age of 3 to 5 years, after which the viral bronchitis of childhood subsides but childhood asthma persists. This asthma of childhood normally persists till adolescence or up to the age of 18 years after which it is controlled. It is therefore that till the age of 3 to 5 years many doctors refrain from labeling the child as asthmatic.
2. The treatment of both the conditions is not very different and inhalers via a spacer and a baby mask need to be given along with some oral bronchodilator medicines.
3. Once his asthma is adequately controlled, then his current symptom of phlegm production will subside.
4. You need to get your child examined by a pediatric pulmonologist if available. Some of the investigations that are advisable are chest xray, blood counts and serum IgE levels.
5. Proton pump inhibitor class of anta acid medicines will help in decreasing the incidence of vomiting in the night as the possibility of reflux GERD worsening in supine position cannot be ruled out.
6. Try to change the timing of giving the milk to the child rather than giving it just before sleeping.
I hope I have answered your query. I will be glad to answer follow up queries if any.
Please accept my answer if you have no follow up queries.
Regards
Dr. Gyanshankar Mishra
MBBS MD DNB
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
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