Asthma in Children

One Morning,A Patient Asked me about her 2 sons.The elder one was 7yrs old and has asthma. Her younger son, who turned four this january, was sickness free till November last year, but he had cough for about 15 days and later developed wheezing. He was treated with a week long course of Taximo. Now for the last 3 days he again had cough with wheezing.She is worried that could he be turning asthamatic?

My Advice to her was : Don’t panic and don’t take instant decision about any disease without doing diagnosis. Wheezing in a child especially with a strong family history is highly suggestive of asthma. But first one may need to rule out other causes such as sinusitis, worm infestation, etc, before labelling it as asthma. Response to salbutamol is also useful. You need to consult your pediatrician to reach the diagnosis and if he turns out to be asthmatic, then proper treatment. 

What Factors that Shows Asthma:

Cough in night, Recurrent wheeze ,dyspnea  and chest tightness.

Precipitating factors:
Dusts, House dust mites, Pollen, Strong emotional expression (laughing, crying), Animals with fur or feathers, Viral infection and much more factors are responsible.

Variation factors: 
Variations in PEFR during the day(>=20%) and Reversible symptoms with treatment.

 

If all mentioned above factors reflects then confirm diagnosis by spirometry and response to bronchodilator drugs. If response is good, asthma is most probable and assess severity and give proper medications otherwise consider other of anti asthma drugs.

For Detail medication and treatment of asthma I have one informative site pediatriconcall.com where I found really helpful information about asthma and for other diseases too.The reference link that you all can follow is :

http://www.pediatriconcall.com/fordoctor/diseasesandcondition/Allergy/asthma/PointerstoAsthmaDiagnosis.asp

Finally just to say that “Diagnosis is much important before reach to any conclusion action on any disease.”