Son sick for 6 years with recurrent airway viruses

[sara954]

My son is now 15 yrs. old, entering high school.  He has been sick since 4th grade, averaging 3-5 days out of school every month due to the same progression of illness -- nausea, sore throat (lower airway), throat closes, and then often the cough starts -- no fever.  His worst episode was in 6th grade when he missed school for close to 3 months with Whooping Cough.  After numerous doctors and hospitals were of little help, we finally convinced a hospital to do a bronchoscopy on his airways and they found he has broncho/tracheo malacia, degenerative and collapsing airways -- with reflux.  The doctors have put him on 80 mg of omeprazole for the past 1 1/2 yrs, hoping the controlled reflux would heal his airways and thus his airways would not be as compromised and open to infection.  Their treatment has not helped.  Only 3 weeks into High School, he has already missed a week of school with illnesses and unable to talk due to his airways being so painful.  Using Atrovent for the cough has also been of little use as well.  My husband and I feel we need to move on and find the best Pulmonary doctor.  His principal specialist after the malacia diagnosis was a GI doctor for the reflux.  Does anyone have any suggestions for next steps or specialists??  The consequences of missing this much school, especially high school, is catching up to him both physically and emotionally.  He loves school, but this has been going on for 6 years now...too long.