Kids & Medication

So kids and medication, not something we’ve had an issue with until now, we were both happy for her to have the standard injections and luckily apart from a bout of hand foot and mouth which wasn’t too pleasant she hasn’t really had any health problems.

Before Christmas she got a cough, I took her to the doctors worried it might be on her chest but they said it wasn’t and to give her “calpol & cuddles” it would sort itself out.

Christmas came and went, the cough didn’t, she then started being sick when she coughed a lot and constantly had a runny nose, I took her back to the doctors and was told……”calpol & cuddles”

A week later she still has a cough, still being sick, still got a runny nose, now affecting her sleep and eating habits. We go back to the doctors, he says its Asthma which we find a bit odd as she is not having any trouble breathing at all, he gives her a ventalin inhalor, some antibiotics and tried to give us Piriton for her itching (what itching?? Well her discomfort then is the response!!)

Not happy with this I take her to the doctors again a couple of days later this time making sure we see our own GP who we trust, she agrees with us that it isnt asthma but to continue with the antibiotics as she does have a throat infection now from all the coughing and vomiting.

We finish the antibiotics, she still has the cough.

I take her back again to be told its not on her chest blah blah blah.

I say I feel I’m being fobbed off, it has been too long and too many visits and im not happy, they refer her to a peadiatrician.

We go to see the paediatrician, he says it IS asthma but not the usual kind that makes it hard to breathe, that she has white blood cells in her airway which when they get irritated make her cough, that the runny nose is also part of it and the tiny patches of eczema, they are all related as are asthma, eczema and hayfever.

He gives her an inhaler but not ventalin, one that will attack these white blood cells, he gives her a nasal spray to help with the runny nose and is happy with the cream we are already using on her skin, he says we wont notice a difference immediately, to use the medication for three months and then see him again, we come away happy, we are not being ignored, what we are told makes sense.

Imogen HATES the inhaler, or more precisely the plastic tube you put over her mouth to spray the inhaler into. We have had to fight her twice a day to use the inhaler.

Last night Chris tries the inhaler without the plastic tube just in her mouth the way an adult would use it. She is fine with it. I do the same this morning she is fine with it.

I come to work and mention it to a colleague who says maybe I should check as she has two inhalers one of which she has been told she has to use through a plastic tube as it is too strong to use directly and can burn.

I phone my sister whose 4yr old has the same inhaler, she says she cant see how it will work direct into her mouth and then says they have been told a specific way to use it with the tube but that originally they were told an incorrect way and were doing it wrong.

We werent told any of this we were just given the medication and told twice a day, no other advice given.

So now what do we do?? I feel we need further advice but who do we ask, our own GP?? The paediatrician who we probably would be able to see until we are due to see him in three months anyway!

I’m very grateful we have the NHS over here, I cant imagine life without it but sometimes I just wish they would explain things better…