Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Really.... she's not sick.

That's my new line...

As Megan hacks up a lung on other kids.
Seriously -she's not sick.
We went to the Dr. today so that we could discuss her coughing and wheezing. We went through this last year so I already knew that she wasn't sick - it's how her allergies affect her.

Ragweed is in full bloom and Megan inhales and is a wheezing, coughing, nose running kid. Mostly it affects her lungs. So after calling in the nurse to chat with them about her inhalers, they said go ahead and bring her in... and you might want to take her outside first so that we can see how it affects her (last time we went in, she sounded clear as a bell with no wheezing... that is until about an hour later when we were on the playground).

So we stopped off on the playground on the way to the Dr's office.... and after 20 minutes of running around, I was confident they would totally understand my concern.

OH YEAH - they did... so much so that they immediately hooked up the nebulizer for an in office Albuterol treatment and started her on a round of oral steriods. They were a little concerned at how little air she was moving. Little scary. Megan did great - what a little trooper. So now we are back on our inhalers. Our main allergy/asthma medicine we have to do daily from Oct-May (yeah, 9 months). And we have our rescue albuterol inhaler, and for this week she's on a steriod as well since her lungs sounded so bad... great.

So... if Megan comes up and starts coughing in your face or the faces of your beloved children... please know... she's not sick. Her allergies just manifest themselves in her lungs instead of nasal plassages. When she coughs her nose runs - but for the most part, her lungs just sound icky. Since her lungs are affected by the allergies, they treat it like asthma - but she doesn't have asthma either. Thank goodness!

All that said... the GOOD news.... Her ears are totally clear! This is the first time she's had an episode like this when it didn't develop into an ear infections! YEAH - Thank you for small miracles!

2 comments:

Sandy P said...

While I have not discussed it with the doctor, I think this is Macie's issue as well. It sounds like she is not as bad as Megan though.

hmferrero said...

oh my goodness! i didn't realize she had it that bad. i haven't noticed any change in jacob's behavior with the zyrtec. is that supposed to be a side affect? it says ages 2 and up - i figured they told us he could take i since he is so close to 2. we have never had the flovent. is that another type of inhaler?