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My son is 7.5 years old and has been diagnosed with cough variant asthma that presents like croup, only it lasts for about a week. Since they started him on inhaled steroids and xopenex, his flare-ups are much less frequent and typically less severe. Is there a reference I can read to learn more. Is there a cheat sheet I can bring to the emergency room to identify to the docs that it really is asthma and not croup. Is there a way to differentiate the difference.
thanks,
Teresa
I am curious to how severe the coughing spells can be, My son was just diagonsed with this problem and his coughing spells are at the point that he has a hard time catching his breathe between coughs. He was given the albuterol for the emergency breather but this dont seem to help to any extent with his breathing at the time of the coughing. I notice on most i have read it states this may lead to regualr asthma, but that is what he started out with this about 3 years ago and now he is nine. the wheezing but now it has changed into this. Is this normal
I suspect that my 74 year old husband has CVA. He started his chronic cough in December, 2008. After a couple of months went to the doc and had chest/lung xray, various heart EKG tests, and complete physical. Everything better than normal for his age.
His cough is worse in the morning, and then subsides and goes away completely during the day. It picks up in the late afternoon, and especially when he drinks red wine before dinner. Then coughs off and on all evening. The cough is loose and rather "harsh". He says that during the night he can hear wheezing sounds in his chest.
Does this sound like CVA??
With my son his coughs are just a dry hacking cough. Sometimes my sons cough will last weeks, continuous except for when he goes to sleep. He may cough a couple times during the night during the the times his coughs are so bad but the night coughs are rare. From what i am told if there is wheezing with the coughing it is regualr asthma and no wheezing is what makes the CVA different as that sympton is not there.
Hi - thanks for responding. I guess I put my question in the wrong place. I think I should copy and repost it?
It must be very hard for you to deal with your son's asthma. I used to worry about my three children all the time. Now they are grown up adults and I still worry about them constantly - especially my youngest daughter. It is something that never ends.
I sincerely hope that your son outgrows his asthma. I have heard that may children do.
Best wishes to you and to your son.
Huntersdady, my sons cough sounds just like your sons-- dry and not at night. He coughs one or two loud coughs at a time throughout the day. Have you found anything that works? My son had the cough for months last year ( antibiotics, cough meds, did not work). He was allergy tested and it came back negative. Sinus and chest xrays- clear. The cough started up again a few weeks ago. Have you found anything that works?
Thanks!
He takes it everyday, it took about 2 weeks before we started noticing a difference. The doctor actually gave him steriods to get him off a coughing spell and then started the cingular and advair and has been on it now for a long time. He has had one flair up but it was significantly less servere that the others have been in the past.
Our daughter's asthma doctor has been treating her for CVA. We did not do a Methacholine challenge. She is on a daily inhaler, rescue inhaler, and in the last 3 months has had to be treate with prednisone for severe coughs. The first 2 months the prednisone tx seemed to work just fine in conjunction with a cough medicine (hydrocodone) This time, her dry cough will not go away. She is on day for of prednisone and the cough is just as bad as it was 4 days ago and the Hydrocodone has ZERO effect on suppressing the cough. Does this mean that she may not have CVA and the cough is being caused by something different? Her doctor says no, but I'm begining to question the diagnosis and am wondering who else we should talk to? An ENT? A Pulmonologist?
Our 5 yr old daughter has cough variant asthma. She coughs only while she is eating and or drinking & does so for approx 15 min. once finished. We both had a sinus infection a couple of weeks prior and I believe that was the cause of her lingering cough, this time.
Has anyone else had the coughing while eating?
I am having the same problem right now. I have always had an issue with milk, especially if I am sick. Right now I am getting over a bout of bronchitis and I can't seem to eat or drink anything without it setting off a cough attack.
I recently discovered CVA and I wish the allergy/asthma doctor had spent more time discussing it with me. I still don't understand how certain things trigger it if there is not also an allergy involved.
As some of the earlier comments in this thread make clear, coughing can be the first sign of asthma.
For years, I relied on Intal to control my coughing, and thus my asthma (along with inhaled corticosteroids).
When Intal (and Tilade) inhalers were taken off the market in the U.S. (due to a manufacturing issue, not a safety issue http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Industry-Drivers/Inyx-drama-highlights-crucial-need-for-due-diligence-on-contractors), I first relied on Intal from a Canadian pharmacy, then tried cromolyn sodium inhalation solution (nebulizer solution) by Teva (cheaper for me, and still sold in the U.S.) http://www.tevausa.com/default.aspx?brandName=Intal%C2%AE%20Inhalation%20Solution&pageId=76, and now, finally, I rely on Tilade from inhousepharmacy.biz http://www.inhousepharmacy.biz/asthma-allergy/tilade.html.
Intal and Tilade are both in the same family of drugs, and I find Tilade to be more effective than Intal. (I never tried Tilade when it was sold here in the U.S., since my doctor never suggested it.)
So, I would advise anyone afflicted by coughing with asthma to at least give Tilade, Intal, or cromolyn sodium inhalation solution a try. (Cromolyn sodium is the same medication as in Intal; Tilade contains nedocromil sodium.)
My 11 year old daughter has cough variant asthma. Two weeks after her 9th birthday she started menstruation. The hormone changes brought on the asthma, something she never suffered from before. We went six months before the coughing and sneezing stopped. It seemed like every doctors appointment yielded another dead end. It sounded like croup, but she was too old for croup. She was given a nebulizer and prednisone and the symptoms would subside, only to return. As spring in New England was beginning, my daughters symptoms became out of control. Again it appeared as an upper respiratory cold, or croup. We went from doctor to doctor. The local asthma specialist even misdiagnosed her. Allergy tests were negative, and breathing tests normal. Next, my daughter began sneezing she sneezed from June 1 to Sept. 18th without stopping. No outdoor play, beach, pool, cookouts or vacations. She could not breath the outside air. She lived in an air conditioned house. It was horrible. Now we trekked to Boston Children's Hospital and finally on Sept. 3rd found an allergist who put her on singulair, xopenex, flovent, and zyrtec. Next, we found a pulmonologist who ordered the MIC test (cold air function test). This test confirmed the asthma. At times she has difficulty and requires prednisone along with her maintenance medication. My daughter cannot use bug spray, hair spray, aerosol sunblock, smell an outdoor fire, and when the humidity and high pollen count is in the air her coughing acts up. Sometimes requiring the prednisone. She also has difficulty with the cold air. It took six months for the diagnosis, but at least we know why she coughs or sneezes and can control it.
Be your child's advocate, if I wasn't my daughter would still be living indoors.
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I beg to differ with you and most experts: since cough is the most common and most frequent (check almost all asthma surveys) symptom of asthma and usually the first sign that your asthma is starting, I have a problem with CVA. I feel the correct term should be "Wheezing variant asthma". Waiting for wheezing or shortness of breadth is like waiting to check your tire when it is flat instead of when it is low.
This is why we all should be emphasizing the "chesty cough" rather than wheezing as when to start your inhalers. If we did this, more asthmatics would be diagnosed earlier and they would start treating their asthma quicker.
Also, I have found in new patients to my practice who have been treated for "recurrent bronchitis" or "chest colds" are really asthmatics and never been treated properly with bronchodialators and ICS's, and therefore, have had prolonged symptoms.
Dr. Tommy... I pulled my info from the asthma guidelines and expert sites such as AAAAI.org. So, I was interested to read that you have such a different take on things. Do you have any reliable source material to refer me to that would back up your theories, so that I can give our readers a more balanced view? I'd love to read more about this...
I have to some what agree with you, I am 53 and coughing is the worst, I have rarely whizzed. If I laugh I cough, If I get to hot I cough, but where they say it is the only symptom, no way. We suffer with shortness of breath, tight chest, and chest pain, but summer is the worst season, I can't wait till the weather cools off. Can't stand to be cold but I can breath so much better in the winter. The mistake to me is when any doctor tries to put every patient in the same little box of symptoms, no two people are alike and why in the world doctors believe that every patients body is going to react the same.( It's like if your symptom is not on the list for this then you don't have that) I'm having an extremely hard time with mine right now and have a hand full of meds but if I walk around or talk I cough, no matter how much I inhale or take. It would greatly help if people were looked at as individuals not just certain things on a list. I was diagnossed years ago, they need to update their list.
Start with almost every Asthma survey and the most common symptom by far is cough, not wheezing. Therefore, if cough is the most common symptom, why is that not emphasized more. Most of the time it is easily identifiable chesty, whether productive or tight and wheezy.
The rest of my observations are just that. A perfect example was a mother yesterday. Her son was diagnosed with asthma and responded to Xopenex and Pulmicort each time. She had Asthma as a child but "outgrew it". Now she gets "chest colds" and "bronchitis" never put on inhalers again (per her words), it is the same cough my son gets but hers lingers for days or weeks no matter what antibiotic or cough suppressant she is given. She also starts coughing when she laughs too hard or tries to go up You tell me what she has up stairs during these times. You tell me what she has.
I don't have much in the literature. I will try to look it up later but one I remember is I believe out of a Phoenix, AZ longitudinal study that in the early 20's an increasing number of "wheezers" as infants developed Asthma. Did they develop Asthma or was their symptoms, e.g., EIA or "bronchitis" or coughing episodes, just missed.
The problem in the literature is, so many times, the studies are looking for other causes of cough despite them saying that the most common cause of chronic or recurrent cough is asthma. I have never seen a study treating this type of patient with bronchial dialators and some with placebos and see who improves the best. All I can tell you is in my office, they do respond with nebulizers almost immediately.
I am a clinician not a researcher so haven't done the study. All I can tell you is that I treat as many asthmatics as many specialists and despite this I have one of the fewest admission rates tcompared to my fellow pediaticians per all the insurance companies data when presented to me. I must be doing something right.
Three of our children (boys) and I have asthma. What you describe with the cough variant asthma is exactly what I've lived with my whole live (41 yrs.) and what our sons have (ages 13, 11, 7). We don't wheeze, yet have asthma. A few doctors we've seen have not thought we had asthma at all because of that fact. If you ever need a "case" study or info, our family would be glad to help. It has been extremely aggrevating at times because I can tell when the boys are starting to get bad and I can't get anyone to listen to me! I KNOW because I live it/feel it myself. It's so good to hear that you believe this is an important issue! Thank you! Lori Waugh, Tipton, OK
Lori in tipton, ok. I hope you are still out there. I your post in may? 2010. I and my late father had the same problem..had no idea what was wrong..i was then as now in Lawton. I checked what literature I could find and came across by chance . Our fam doc never heard of it..showed him the artical (15 or 20 years ago) Im now looking for that paper and ran across your email. I have it now (in tulsa with family. STILL I HAVE NOT talked to any health professional who has heard of it. GOH from "Chatty" OKLAHOMA