toddler asthma

My son is 2 and has been dealing with breathing broblems since he was born. In the last year we have been in the hospital with pneumonia. He has had pneumonia at least 5 times in the last year, some mild some not. We do emergency treatments at night, Albuterol and Pulm. every 30 min 3 times to calm the coughing or respirations down. We have been to two diffrent astma and allergy speciallists. He now takes the same dose of asthma meds that I do. He has been on 18 plus rounds of antibotics. I could go on but, to the qusetion. It seems that he just keeps getting worse as he gets older. Is this going to continue? He does best when he is on Prednisone. Any help? thanks

[National Jewish Health]

We should not assume that his main problem is asthma, especially with a history of 5 bouts of pneumonia.  It would be very desirable to rule out underlying lung disease, such as cystic fibrosis (CF) or tracheomalacia, and possible immunodeficiency states.  This could best be done by a pediatric specialist in pulmonary disease or infectious disease.

This must be very hard on you and your husband.  Fortunately your son should do better as he gets older.

[Nicki1433]

Well, prednisone is a steroid that can have many negative long-term affects if used too frequently (from what I gather from our pediatrician).  I am in the same boat.  My 2 year olds asthma seems to get worse all the time.  He's had pneumonia 4 times and RSV once.  He's had multiple rounds of antibiotics also for sinus infections.  We've tried Claritan, Zyrtec, Nasonex, and now Singulair.  The singular was working.  We actually had 3 days w/o having to use albuterol at all (down from every 4 hours which is the max. dose for him).  But, now it is flaring back up again.  He had to use his inhaler 3 x today, 1 x yesterday and 1 x Saturday (b/c he was turning blue upon exhertion).

His pediatrian isn't being very proactive about it, as we've been to no specialists for it, although I will be calling her to get a recommendation to one.  She just says that he's not the worst asthma patient she has.  My fear is for this winter.  Winter is always the worst time, in fact...until this year we've never had trouble from April-October....it's always just really bad from November-March.  I really fear this Winter, since this Summer has been so bad.  Each Winter has been progressively worse too.