another croup question!!!!!!

i tried adding a post to another question i posted about this but i guess i'll ask this way...  for those of you who have dealt w/ the croup...  is the "barking cough" a common occurance w/ a child's cold?  nolan has another cold right now (we all do actually) and he has the barking cough again w/ it.  this time though he's not doing it just at night its all day long...  but he does not have a fever and is still happy and playful...  he just has lots of snot and a bark!  i just want to know if its common to get that same sounding cough each time he gets sick?  my dd's never did this...

[1nana]

A barking cough is almost always associated with croup. Not all babies/kids run a fever.

It wouldn't hurt to have him seen by his pedi, especially since this will be a short week due to the holiday.

Meanwhile make sure you run a cool mist humidifier or vaporizer. If he is struggling to breathe, a quick fix is to run all the bathroom faucets/shower (with door closed, of course) and keep him in there for 10-15 minutes. Wrap him up and then take him outside to the cold air. This helps with the inflammation.

[kennedydp5]

thank you nana!  :)

but do you know if its common for him to get it w/ each cold?

[1nana]

Yes, if he was infected with the virus that causes croup. An individual can get croup more than once.

[SeeingSpots]

When my son had the croup, it came on suddenly- we'd previously just assumed it was a common cold (sneezing, runny nose, poor appetite, moody).  Croup is a viral infection, so fever is very common.  He woke us up in the middle of the night with the "barking".  It really didn't sound like a cough at all, rather a deep, straining barking noise, unlike anything I'd ever heard before.  We immediately took him in to the bathroom, shut the door, and let the steam build up in there with him.  It really didn't help too much.  We then took him outside in the cool evening air.  It helped a little bit and he fell asleep (of course, I couldn't sleep a wink).  He then woke himself up barking at 4am- this time with stridor and visible difficulty breathing (you could see his ribs protruding as he was trying to get a breath).  It was off to the ER we immediately went.  He was given nebulizer treatments with Prednisone and monitored for quite some time before we could bring him home.

Anyway, like wannabenana said, it wouldn't hurt taking him in for a check-up just to be sure since the holiday weekend is almost here.  If it does get worse be sure to monitor him closely... croup can become very serious quickly-- although most of the time it goes away on its own.  Could his barking sounding cough be just from him coughing so much and making him hoarse or the result of a sore throat?  Is it all the time when he's breathing, or just occassionally?  With my son it was constant, you could visibly see and hear he was having problems breathing (thus the barking), and he was "off", not playing and running around.

Hope he's better real soon!

[dainsey]

My daughter just had the croup and I just thought it was a cold but then someone heard the "seal" bark and told me to take her in...Sure enough it was the croup... They gave her prednisone and she got over it in a few days...

[SeeingSpots]

P.S.  If indeed it is croup, your son may have what they call "spasmodic croup (acute spasmodic laryngitis)", which can be triggered by viruses, allergies or reflux. Although they may have trouble breathing, children with spasmodic croup often don't have a fever, and get better quickly after several hours.  It's different from regular croup, in that it is often repetitive... which it sounds like your son has been having.

[kennedydp5]

seeing spots-  thank you!  my ds is playing and smiling like normal and does not have a fever.  when he's sleeping he breathes fine, its when he's awake when he coughs and the snot afftects his breathing.  he does not have stridor.  i've not raed about 'spasmodic croup' but that sounds a little more along the lines for what he sounds like.

last time in october when he had this it wasn't during the day, only at night and only a couple times when i heard the barking sound.  i called the ped then and they told me about the shower and humidifier...  but they never said anything about any type of breathing treatments.