Alhamdulillah he has not needed any antibiotics until last week.
His last illness started 11/1: runny nose, coughing, fever, congestion which again, turned into wheezing. We started him on nebs at home the day before we took him to the doc. At the visit, the doc gave him a neb treatment in the office and prescribed 1 week of neb (3 times a day) with prednisone for 5 days (third time on steroids in 2 months Subhanallah) and we decided it was finally time to pay a visit to a pulmonologist.
This episode has been the 5th Upper respiratory infection that resulted in him wheezing and needing nebulizer treatments. During the last episode, we took him to the ER (in October) because it was a weekend and it got pretty bad. He was having such difficulty breathing, he couldn't even sit still. The ER physician, suggested prophylactic use of pulmicort (steroid inhaled through nebulizer) every day with albuterol. We decided not to start it until an actual pulmonologist made a decision.
So we finally met with Dr Deluca, last Wednesday, the lung guy, and a great guy at that! He basically said he's leaning towards Noah being an asthmatic without really giving a final diagnosis now, as Noah's under 2. He said if this pattern of Noah's cough-turn-wheezing continues until next May, he is definitely an asthmatic. He agreed with use of pulmicort and even suggested to use it twice a day until May...but we came to a compromise. My husbands suggestion was to use it for as long as Noah was still in daycare. Since we are taking Noah out of daycare this week (as I'm due in 1 week with baby #2), one: we will see if the occurence of him getting sick decreases... And two: if they do occur, does it lead to wheezing? If it does, we'll continue the nebulizer treatments until May.
Doc agreed.
Come Wednesday night into Thursday morning, Noah had a fever (but without other issues). I took off on Thursday to watch him. Gave him 3 doses of tylenol and fever came down. I thought he was teething because he was biting me (and nothing else, no runny nose, coughing, pulling ears, etc etc) but I didn't really see any new teeth. We decided we would take him to the doctor on Friday. Tahmeed was off that day anyway and coincidentally that day, my sister in law saw him pull his left ear...so she inspected and what do you know, REDNESS!!
Anyway, by the time I came home Friday, Noah had a fever of 102.3, my poor baby. I gave him tylenol and off we went to the doc...and of course...he had an ear infection!! His first one!!! He was given antibiotics to take 2 times a day for 10 days.
He doesn't like the antibiotic much so it's a scream fest each time with some spitting up. The neb treatments are also 2 times a day and are about 15-20 minutes each and the only way to get him to sit through that is...with screen time...and even then he'll randomly scream and try to remove the mask. Sigh. I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
Alhamdulillah it could be worse and I am grateful for being able to get care when we need it and able to afford medication.
Insha'Allah he feels better soon.
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