Cough Variant Asthma

This is the story of Luke's health struggle the last seven years and how we *think* we have finally found the answer to his problem.

Luke had RSV when he was 9 months old. It didn't require hospitalization, and he recovered quickly. We were relieved about that. But in caution over his "twitchy" lungs and wheezing, we were sent home with a nebulizer and Albuterol to help control "possible asthma."

But no one ever said anything about asthma again.

We heard about allergies (tested with the stick method twice)
We heard about steroids (given them a lot)
We had his tonsils and adenoids removed when he was 3.
We heard about sinus infections (and administered countless antibiotics to him over the years, literally, dozens of rounds and I don't want to THINK about how many x-rays he has had)
We heard about sinus passages, and how sinus surgery was a last resort.
We tried medicine after medicine. Singular, Zyrtec, Albuterol, Alavert. You name it, he tried it.
At one point, he was on 9 different medicines.
That's when I decided to take him off everything.
That didn't work either.
We tried sinus rinses. They helped.
But regardless of all these things, Luke still struggled with this:

RELENTLESS COUGHING, primarily at night. Coughing until he vomited. Coughing so hard blood vessels broke in his face. And there was absolutely no cough medicine that would make a difference. Fresh air, lemon and honey, cough drops, lollipops, they were all mocking us. He lost sleep. His face puffed up. And then we would crawl back like servants to an antibiotic, the only thing that would relieve what we believed were sinus infections. No one really seemed to get it but Tom and I. The helplessness we felt when we heard that first little strum of a cough, the unproductive, tight cough that was a sure sign of a long, long night.

And then, at age 7, our ENT recommended an Infectious Disease doctor. Just in case Luke was dealing with some kind of immunity problem, because after all IT'S NOT NORMAL FOR A KID TO HAVE A CONSTANT REOCURRENCE OF A CONDITION SUCH AS A SINUS INFECTION. I get that now. I get that I should have searched harder and quicker. But Dr. Chang sat and listened for an hour to Luke's health history. I could see his wheels turning. He is one of those people who is smarter than smart, yet personable and warm. After I took Luke for a potty break, we walked back in and Dr. Chang gave me his tentative diagnosis:

Cough Variant Asthma.

People with CVA have no classic symptoms of asthma, such as wheezing or shortness of breath. For that reason, it is a very difficult condition to diagnose.

Here is what I found on "Pediatric Planet" - Some children with a persistent cough have a condition called "cough variant asthma." This means that we believe that the child is coughing because his or her breathing tubes (bronchi) are reacting to irritation by squeezing in to a smaller size, just like in asthma. Children with cough variant asthma do not make the wheezing sound that we usually hear in children with ordinary asthma, though. This can make it difficult to diagnose the condition, and very often children with cough variant asthma have been through a number of other diagnoses or treatments. Parents of children with cough variant asthma usually find that regular cough and cold medicines don’t help their children, and of course antibiotics don’t help either. Cough variant asthma can be a very frustrating condition.

This blog also helped. It helped me to hear the story of another parent who dealt with similar issues.

So, we have been treating Luke's asthma for the last few weeks, and so far, it's like magic. He's doing very well on the Flovent inhaler. And it's such a relief to have a healthy little boy. It's only been a few weeks, so I am a little hesitant to declare it a total cure, but we are very optimistic that we have made some progress by finding out about CVA.