Carolyn4

I have a 10 year old daughter who has spastic quad. cerebral palsy. She has both bronchomalacia and laryngomalacia. Up until just over 3 years ago she was a reasonably healthy child with only getting colds a couple times a year. Then out of the blue she started gettig sick ( very flat and very phlemey in chest. ) and this has for some reason comes on in a regular patten that she is like this every 4 weeks. Havent got far with her Doctors they keep saying its chronic bronchitis. then two months ago another doctor said that her medication (diazapam) could be causing this but he changed her medication and she is now on Baclofen. We went through a hard time with the change of meds (and still are at times) She was very tense, grumpy and hardly slept. Now she is sweaty all the time (unsure if its withdrawals but a doctor has said it wouldn't be cos she was on a low doze 7.5mg a day). Any suggestions of why she get sick every 4 weeks any why she is very sweaty now will be appreciated.

[National Jewish Health]

From what you report, it appears that the rationale for stopping the diazepam was suppression of respiratory drive, perhaps general sedation and possibly impaired bronchial mucus clearing.  Baclofen, a muscle relaxant, is not really a good substitute for diazepam but may relax your daughter's spastic quads.  Sweating is not a reported side effect of Baclofen, but anything is possible.  More likely that sweating is related to infection.

It is conceivable that the bronchomalacia and laryngomalacia are increasingly causing secretion retention in the bronchi, leading to recurrent infection.  Another possibility is that she may have developed bronchiectasis, due to the malacia and/or associated with cystic fibrosis.  It would be important to comprehensively culture her bronchial mucus.

You need answers.  At this time, you might want to seek a second opinion from a pediatric pulmonologist.