Asthma, Indeed

So we received our official diagnosis on Wednesday - Vin has asthma. As you may recall he was flagged for it a few months ago but it was too early then to tell for certain. Well, on Tuesday Vin started getting a little cold. On Wednesday I picked Jason up from work in the city and on the way home Vin started crying and pulling at his ears. This means either he's teething or has an ear infection (or has figured out that pulling at his ears gets a major reaction from his parents). Anyway, we popped into the doctor on the way home to have his ears checked. We've let ear infections go with him before and the results are nasty. So the good news is that he didn't have an ear infection but while he was there he started wheezing and his respirations became very fast.

Unfortunately, this has been a normal occurrence as of late. In fact, he's had three "colds" since February and with each one he's had wheezing, distressed breathing, and coughing fits that have required us to give him breathing treatments. So anyway, the doctor said she was concerned and had his pulse oxygen level taken and his respirations measured. The results were not good so she insisted on giving him a breathing treatment in the office. After the treatment they took his measurements again and they came back perfect.

Then the doctor sat down with us and said at this point, with having six respiratory illnesses and two ear infections in the past six months and having asthma attacks with each one, he is most certainly an asthmatic and that it's time to consider a preventive approach vs. the rescue treatments we've been using. She prescribed a daily breathing treatment which is a inhaled steroid called pulmicort. We can still use the rescue treatments during attacks but the steroid is supposed to prevent the attacks. So far he's had one treatment and we've still needed to use the rescue treatment on him every three hours (including in the middle of the night!).

I think we are going to take him to see a specialist because we are not thrilled with him being on a daily medication when he only has attacks when he's sick. Though the doctor pointed out that he's sick so much because his lungs are always inflamed and the steroid takes down that inflammation.

We have a lot of questions floating around our heads. So are these colds or just prolonged asthma attacks?? How can we figure out what his triggers are to cut down on the attacks? Who knows, but I'm hoping we'll get some answers next week when we have a follow up appointment with his pediatrician.

The good news is that for the most part he takes the attacks very well. In fact, the doctor said he is what is known as a "happy wheezer" - where unless they are in severe distress they just wheeze and go about their business happy as can be.