lung problem

[Lotte2]

my son cough continuously, he was given antibiotic by his pediatrician  but did not make any effect on my son, his dr said my son maybe allergic to dust, and i dont know wat to do coz we all know that dust is located anywhere else. he also took the first dose of IM injection of an anti bronchopneumonia and will take the 2nd 1 after 2 mons( june 2010). But still as of now he is still coughing. I decided to have an x-ray for my son and the result was, hyperaerated lungs. What does it means? What will I do next? what are the things I need to avoid to stop my son's cough?


This discussion is related to CT SCAN RESULTS.

[squirtatious]

I went thru 5 long, miserable weeks of head wracking coughing. I had cough medicine with codeine given to me, breathing treatments, inhalers given to me, steroid shots, u name it, it was done...I decided to give alternative medicine a chance and went to a muscle tester and iridologist. She diagnosed me on the first visit. Severe dairy and wheat allergy. I stopped including those in my diet, and within two weeks, my cough was completely gone:)  id advise having ur son tested for food allergies, take care *squirt*

[gmac1217]

I dont mean to scare you but have you ever had your son tested for cystic fibrosis? My fiance was diagnosed with it at age 11 and he also couldn't stop coughing. It's just a thought but ask your dr if he can give your son a sweat test to rule out the possibility

[ggreg]

Before I answer, you should also try to post over in the allergy or asthma forum, they will know more about your son's condition than this gastroenterology (abdominal, below diaphram) forum.  But the hyperaeration is just a fancy word for saying his lungs are blown up rather large because he's got some kind of blockage going on in his breathing tubes.  Usually this happens from pneumonia, bronchitis, even whooping cough (he should have been immunized for that, tho), and also commonly in youngsters is an asthma type situation, which makes it really hard for them to breathe and is usually triggered by an allergy of some kind.

Now, the doc has given him an injection to help with any bronchitis or pneumonia, so that's off the list.  Keep in mind, it will take a while for the medicine to kill the bacteria that caused those problems.  And if you know your boy has been vaccinated for the usual things, whooping cough is off the list.  That leaves a possible allergy problem, which is why the doc said something about dust, since that is one of a number of "triggers" that make a kid cough. So, I'll talk about the coughing part now.

I think you should ask your doctor to please prescribe a bronchiodilator.  It's a little gizmo where you push a button on a little cannister, and he inhales this medicine that gets blown into his lungs, and that will help him breathe more easily.  It'll last for a few hours.  I've had pneumonia, bronichitis, AND an allergy to some house rabbits we adopted, and I was prescribed one of those inhaler things, and gosh, does it ever help!  But you have to get it from your doctor, NOT from the drugstore.

You did not say how old your son is.  If he is older than 2 years old, then you can heat him up some decaff tea, put 1/2 teaspoon of honey and a squirt of lemon in there (NO HONEY IF YOUR CHILD IS YOUNGER THAN 2), plus a little sugar.  That will lessen the amount of coughing.  Also, in his room, you should put a humidifier in there, the kind that blows warm vapor out, which helps a child or anybody with a cough breathe more easily.  

As for WHY your son is coughing, if the medicine given to him doesn't work out, then there's probably an allergy to SOMEthing going on in his environment.  We're going into spring in the U.S., and changes in seasons, particularly this time of year, can cause people of all sorts to cough and sneeze and carry on like they have a cold all day long.  So, you can limit his access to the outdoors until we get a good rain and the TV weatherman says pollen indicators are low, which depending on where you live, should be in around May, just a couple weeks away.

Other possible allergens are mold, dust, animals, chemicals, and some foods and medicines.  On the chemical thing, mostly it has to do with industrial types, but it wouldn't hurt to think it over, about if anyone is using a new perfume, or did you change the laundry detergent stuff, or is there a new toy that might have a strange smell, or if you recently cleaned windows with Windex or whatever then go back over them with plain water.  The main foods that can cause allergy are milk, soy, eggs, nuts, wheat, and seafood.  If you recently introduced one of those items to his diet, you can try not giving it to him, and see if he stops coughing.  

On the dust, just give his room and play area a good spring cleaning, wash curtains and bedding, if you've opened the windows be sure to vacuum off the screens, and where he bathes get some diluted chlorox and wipe the area good for any mold, and lastly change the filters in your furnace/air conditioning unit if you have one and clean the vents with a damp rag.  That ought to do it for dust.  But really, if you've always kept your house really clean and you know that dust isn't it, as you said in your post, then I do not mean to tell you things that you've already done.  I'm just trying to give you as many ideas as I can think of, since you asked.

I hope you will get the inhaler from your doctor, that might really help.  If after he gets one of those and he STILL coughs and coughs, then I think you might seek a "second opinion" and have another pediatrician check him out OR you can just take your son right on over to the ER and tell them how many times daily and how many days he's been coughing like this.  Bring any records you have about the medicine your doc gave him, plus the X-ray results, so they won't give him a drug that might not agree with what he's already got in his system.  And let us know what happens, even if you wind up over at another forum.