Never Ending Cold

Hi S.,
I'm thinking allergies. Could be cleaning products. Feel free to e-mail me for more information.
S.

From past experience please keep a good eye on him. I went through the same thing with my little girl. Colds and ear infections for about 5 months straight. We ended up putting tubes in but has since lead to minor hearing loss b/c we waited so long before the tubes. She is doing better now at the age of three. Please keep in mind I went through many meds and Drs. Nothing ever seemed to resolve the situation. Due to constint sinus problems and then ear infections we decided to get her hearing tested which she failed. She since has had speech delays. She is a very bright little girl, the Drs told us because of her symptoms lasting so long it created the hearing loss. Please has him seen by an ENT specialist asap.

Sounds like allergies to me...my son went through this his first year in day care...sinus infections and ear infections every month! Have him tested for some common allergens and see what comes up.

Our son had the same thing! May was the first month we were all healthy since February.

My guess is it is not allergies-basically because kids aren't supposed to be suseptible to common allergens/seasonal until after they are two..but i'm sure there are exceptions.

Our son is turing 18 mo and I was convinced it was allergies and my ped said no. First time it was a 'cold' that wouldn't go away (three weeks) and she said that allergy symptoms present differently, (for instance the lining of the nose is a different color, etc then an infection), he had a sinus infection. Did two types of antibiotics, and I kid not, three days after being off the antib's he got another cold. I thought for sure we would be doing it all over..but went in for a c/up, he was wheezing, had a nebulizer treatment. Went home with an inhaler and instructions to watch him and if he's not better in 7-10 days then it's probably something more. He was coughing too-that raspy cough that reverberates through the monitor. He was also seemingly fine...ate, played happy.

It really did just take time-and some finally nicer weather and he seems to have kicked it.

Couple things that really helped...vaporizer in his room...warm mist, not cold, and chest rub (like vics, but the kind for babies). Use those every night.

Also-our ped said using benadryl is fine too at night. Even if it's not allergies. At the very least it helps them sleep.

My son had very similiar issues. Constant colds, coughing, snoring, etc. His constant cough drove me bananas! We brought him to an ENT. He had his adenoids and tonsils removed and tubes put in his ears. It has made a remarkable difference! His ENT is Dr. James Sidman, Pediatric ENT Associates, 910 Medical Place, Suite 323, 910 East 26th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55404, ###-###-####. They are located next to Children's Hospital - Mpls.

Good luck!

Is there a chance that your home (or where he spends a good chunk of his time) has mold? I have known 2 families now with similar situations. One was an apartment that had mold from flood damage, they had to move; the other was a family who had been using a hand-me-down mattress that had been the child's grandmother's mattress (so it was literally 40+ years old!). In the 2nd case, the child had continuous colds and got pneumonia every winter for 4 straight years. When they finally thought about the mattress, the replaced it and the child hasn't been sick since (that was over a year ago!) Mold can be tricky and very powerful. Just a thought!

Here are a fw things I would try before taking him to a doctor.
First, find a chiropractor that works with children. Agood adjustment can make a world of difference.

Secondly, get him on some antibiotics. We use Acidophilus called YUM YUM DOPHILUS, but any acidophilus wafter tablet will work. For his age, you could get him the chewable wafers, or get him the tablets that break open a you can sprinkle the powder on applesause or in his drink. Probiotics remove the bad bacteria in the body and replace it with good.

Third, I would switch him from dairy to almond milk. I would skip right over soy, there is too much in it and its so overprocessed, and the hormones, that its not even soy anymore and I'm not down with it. Rice milk has alot of sugar in it too. Almond milk is the best alternative. Cows milk can cause lots of mucous and cold like symptoms if a child has a protein sensitivity.

It will take 2wks for dairy to leave hte sytem totally, so if after a couple wks he's still having problems, then consider taking him into the doctor.

My son is going through the same thing. Last October [when he first started daycare] until now, he has been sick. I mean that. Has not gotten totally better yet. Right now all he has is a green snotty nose and a little cough, thank god. He has had ear infections, ear tubes put in, pink eye, constant snotty nose, diarrhea, vomiting, coughing, rashes, high fevers, pneumonia, the list goes on. He has had three ambulance rides so far, countless visits to the Doctor, urgent care, and ER, one hospitalization, been on every kind of antibiotic there is multiple times, antibiotic shots, probiotics, ear drops, eye drops, steroids, cremes, nebulizer, etc.
I've asked many doctors what I should do...and EVERY one if them told me that what my son has gone through is COMMON[!] for the first year in daycare. They said that they see cases like his all of the time. It is hard to believe, but from what I've heard what your son is going through is totally normal. I was told that even though my son has had such a rough time for the last eight months, it is actually good for him because his immune system will be built up [when????], and that he will either go through this now, or... if I pull him out of daycare [which I simply can't afford to do anyway]... he will go through it when he starts school. It is so frustrating, but I don't think there is anything you can do to prevent it unless you want to stay in the house and have no contact at all with the outside world [which would lead to other issues too!]. Hang in there

My son had a long period of time (about a year, I think) where he was just sick with a cold or another cold or... another cold! He's 3 now and healthy. He doesn't get sick when the other kids who haven't been exposed to so much do get sick.

It sucked but it did eventually end. And it's great to have him so healthy now.

What we did to get through it was have my mother come over one or two nights a week so I could actually SLEEP and not get sick myself and recover enough from taking care of a sick kid constantly to KEEP taking care of a sick kid constantly. Other than that, we sort of just kept on with life as normal as possible, except that we tried not to expose everybody else to our sick kid all the time.

hang in there- it does end.

Hi S.,
My little guy had the same sort of issue. He had almost constant ear and sinus infections (and he did have tubes in his ears). My son had the added complication of having Down syndrome, so the craniofacial structures are smaller than normal which adds to the issue.
I finally called a friend of mine who does a lot of holistic work. We made 3 big changes which made a big difference in how often he was sick and then he eventually outgrew it.
1) We switched him to a vitamin called Mighty Mins
2) We switched him to rice milk instead of dairy (causes less mucous and also gluten free)
3) We bought a tuning fork and started tuning fork therapy with him every time he started getting sick (to help drain the sinuses and ears).

I hope this helps. It is so hard on everyone when your child is sick so often!
K.

I agree to making an appointment with an ear, nose and throat specialist. Also, the warm mist vaporizer is extremely helpful for the cough and stuffy nose, but it can make a bedroom as humid as a rainforest so either crack a window in the room, or dress him VERY lightly. The babay vicks works great and so does basic saline solution. If you use the saline solution A LOT, it is perfectly safe, and gets everything out instead of going down his throat which makes him cough. "Little Noses" makes a saline solution for kids. One word of advice, I tried those Vicks plug-ins and the Sudacare Plug-ins; even on the lowest setting, they overpower the bedroom with a menthol smell that can make you puke. I'll never use them again!

I haven't read all the posts so I apologize if I am repeating info from anyone. My son has cold and allergy induced asthema. He is on pulmicort through the winter and also right now because his allergies are soooo bad. We took him to the doctor because he was rubbing his eyes so bad they were completely blood shot. The doctor told us to put him on children's zyrtek and since then he has been wonderful. No couging, no rubbing eyes, etc. My son is only 3 by the way but not sure how young they can take the zyrtek. They also apparently have children's clariten.

In addition, my son has had numerous ear infections, has gone through two sets of tubes but now sees a children's chiropractor in Cottage Grove and we also have switched him to rice milk to reduce phlegm. I think the chiropractor has helped some but I think the rice milk really did the trick. Trader Joe's has it for the lowest price. Rice Milk in the grocery store is outrageously priced so don't get it there. By the way, rice milk has same amount of calcium and vitamins as regular milk, and doc said it was ok too.

Good Luck. I would definitely look into allergy meds and/or switching to rice milk.

My now 18 month old had similar issues from the time we brought her home from the hospital. Then my perfectly healthy older daughter who was 14 months old at that time started getting sick. For over a year we had the on again - off again colds with the both of them. I finally broke down and got the youngest one tubes which did help with the infectiosn but not the colds. She went through quite a bit of testing from allergies to immune deficiency tests. Everything came back normal. My pediatrician told me time and again that some kids are just unlucky and more suseptable until they grow out of it in a year or two. This was too hard to hear because I was worn out from all the colds and subsequent issues that came from the colds. Neither of them go to daycare but they still managed to get sick. I didn't put anything helpful in here for you other then perhaps the idea that maybe your son is like my daughters and it is something they will have to grow out of.

If you want to go to an ENT, that's fine, but I would take him to a chiropractor ASAP. If his spine is out of alignment, which is very easy to do at that age, his immune system will be totally out of whack. You can find a good chiro at www.icpa4kids.org. There is some really good information on that site about how chiropractic helps kids. I prefer Chiros that practice the Gonstead method, but that's a personal choice. All of my kids have been getting adjusted since as early as six weeks. Good Luck.

My son was almost 3 when he got a "cold". His cold never went away. He always had a stuffy nose and a cough. The doctor tried everything. Just when I thought it would go away, it was back again. Finally the doctor referred us to a allergy specialist. What my doctor thought was a cold turned out to be severe allergies to almost anything outdoors. He was allergic to grass and at almost 3 years old loved playing outdoors and in the grass. He is now 14 and has not outgrown his allergies. We have them well under control. My advice would be to take him to an allergy specialist and have him tested for seasonal allergies. This is a time where outdoor allergies will affect you more.

I agree with some of the other moms on here that it could be allergies, but it could also be asthma, or both. My son has what is called 'cough induced' asthma. He would have a chronic cold that just wouldn't go away, constant ear infections, runny nose, etc. but he never wheezed. With Cough induced asthma, they rarily wheeze, but they cough when their asthma is acting up (especially at night) and because of the build up of mucus, their little noses run and run and they cough quite a bit and it can cause chronic ear/sinus infections as well. Once we had my son diagnosed and put on an inhaler, it all stopped. Now whenever he gets a cold, we automatically start giving him his inhaler (if there is a cough present) because if we don't, the cold will be very prolonged. You might try finding him a pediatrician that specializes in allergies and asthma. Good luck to you hun!

i would make an apt with a ear nose and throat speciallist. My oldest had a constant cold for almost his whole first year (no he wasn't in any daycare). I took him to an allergiest and made him suffer throught the allergy testes which came back clear. but they did a face xray. anyway he was diagnosed with chronic sinus infections and they put him on a deallergy medicine that basicly just dried up his muccus membranes, by age three he was the healthiest kid I know and he still doesn't get half the colds the rest of us do.