4yr old with heart disease cant stop coughing and weezing

[amunoz85]

i have a 4 year old with heart disease and sever asthma. I took her to the doctor last week for coughing and wezzing. and they put her on meds, but today she is still coughing and wezing. and throwing up atleast 2 times a day. I am worried that it is putting stress on her heart, and i called the clinic and they said that there is nothing else that they can do for her. I need to know is there something that i can do for her to help her? or what would u suggest i do for her? please help me help my daughter...

[Jeffrey R Boris, M.D.]

Dear Amunoz,

It sounds like there are a couple of things going on here.  Your daughter has both some sort of heart problem as well as her asthma.  From your description, I am not able to tell the severity of her heart disease, so cannot say how much her asthma is putting stress on her heart.  However, unless she has severe abnormality of the pumping ability of the heart, the asthma is probably not causing as much of a secondary problem for your heart.  There is something called “cardiac asthma,” which can occur when there is severe heart disease and congestive heart failure.  As I mentioned, I can’t tell from your description how bad your daughter’s heart disease is, so can’t say what the actual disease is.

Most likely, though, assuming your daughter does not have severe heart disease, it sounds as if your daughter’s asthma is definitely uncontrolled.  In 2009, with both the amount of knowledge about asthma as well as the variety of medications for asthma available, there is essentially no reason that your daughter’s asthma should be uncontrolled to this degree.  I would recommend that you meet with your primary care provider and have him or her teach you about asthma, how to treat it both acutely and chronically (using rescue and controller medications), how to avoid asthma triggers, and how to use an Asthma Action Plan.  You need to be able to be an active participant in her care plan, which means that they need to involve you.  If you feel that you are not getting this from your present care provider, you can always seek a second opinion.  Also, you should know that if she is breathing faster than 30 times per minute at rest or the skin is sucking in between her ribs if she is breathing hard at rest, you should take her to your local emergency department for treatment.  Finally, don’t forget to have your cardiologist actively teach you about your daughter’s heart disease, so you understand how serious it may or may not be, and where it fits in the larger picture of your daughter’s health.

[momtofourboys]

I hope your daughter is better today on top of sucking in at the rib/neck area and breathing fast, also look as you might already aware of color changes around the moth/lips and for noises like she is trying to bear down and have a bowl movement this is called grunting.
I am wondering since she has RSV. my son had it 2 times really bad the first time and the 2nd not as bed because he was given shots to help reduce the effects if he got it again.he is a cardiac little guy. and there is nothing they can do for it it is viral
I am not sure this will help my hubby says it made a difference with him, if she is taking an inhaler ask for a nebulizer. I have to give our youngest a neb every day and he is 5 1/2 and my hubby says it seems to be helping my hubby better then the inhaler.

good luck and I hope she feels better soon
michelle