4 Yr Old with Multiple Cases of Pneumonia

Some great advice here. Just thought I would chime in about that breeding ground of all germs, the vaporizer. Keep it clean or throw it out.

I'm not a doctor but I will throw this out there, as someone I know had family going through something that sounds a little similar. The little boy kept coming down with pneumonia, being hospitalized, etc.

After well over a year, maybe 2 or more (I am not sure the time line exactly), some doctor somewhere figured out that he had reflux. When he would lie flat sleeping, he would reflux and in aspirate it into his lungs, resulting in pneumonia and eventually (because it went on so very long undiagnosed and untreated) additional lung issues.

So, maybe have the doctors look at reflux along with all the other things they are probably looking into.

Could he possibly have reflux & be aspirating? Just a thought.

I am so sorry to hear you all are going through all this! Must be scary. My son had Pneumonia at Christmas last year (age 3) and it was scary. 6 times in one year is cause for concern. Is it possible that the Pneumonia is just not clearning up completely with treatment and then coming back? At this point, I think I would see a new pediatrician. Get copies of your son's medical records to take with you to the first appointment. Get their opinion and ask for another referal to another specialist. 6 cases of pneumonia inside one year deserves your pediatricians full attention. Dont stop until you get answers. Sorry you are going through this.

I do know that once you have pneumonia you are so much more susceptible to it. But with this many occurences in 1 year, I would try a pediatric pulminologist. Also check to see if he is a candidate (not sure of the age) for the pneumonia vaccine. Also - ask about an antibiotic for prevention. Sometimes they will do this. Won't hurt to ask. Maybe he just needs to grow a little more to get past this.

I'm so sorry you both are dealing with this. Pneumonia is a beast, one you get it, it damages your lungs and makes you more susceptible to respiratory infections. I wonder if regular breathing treatments, over time, may help. He should also see a pulmonologist about his lung issues. If you and your doctor are doing follow-ups to make sure he's actually recovering from each infection, it's possible he may need additional chest x-rays after he seems recovered to double check.

I think you need to see a pediatric immunologist. I can think of a few things you should rule out. I'm concerned that you had an incomplete work up done. So sorry. Your poor baby. Please check the Jeffrey Modell website for a doctor in your area.

All of these responses are great. I am going to add one thing to also consider.

Our daughter had trouble the first few years of her life with all sorts of Asthma, pneumonia, ear infections, sinus.. etc..

I finally just could not take it anymore and just broke down and started keeping a calendar of how each day was as concerned with her health..It included the whether, her activities, sleep, attitude, a bit about her food intake and her physical being.. I began to see a few patterns.

I finally decided, we needed to get rid of all carpets and drapes in our home. No matter how much we dusted and vacuumed, Austin is a place where things are always blowing in and blooming.. I just could not keep up..

. On Saturday mornings she stayed inside the house if people were mowing their yards or raking leaves. We would wait for things to settle down out there, before she could play outside in our yard.

If she seemed to become pale and have slight dark circles around her eyes, I new she was not getting enough oxygen. I would use the nebulizer, prior to the wheezing.

No more live Christmas trees.

The one time she did get pneumonia, it took her a full 2 weeks to recover after they sent us home.. that meant no daycare and we had to stay home to care for her and try to keep her from doing too much too soon. That was when we realized cigarette smoke was toxic to our daughter.

I purchased the best filters for our air and heating system and purchased a electric air filter for her bedroom. We kept her room door closed so that her room could be a sanctuary.. 2 comforters, so I could wash one every week, the other was for when we had visitors so it would not look faded.

This was just our normal.. She really did grow out of a lot of this by about 4th or 5th grade..

Never let up. figure out what it will take to get him the help he needs.

My son and I both get allergy induced Bronchitis, and if it isn't treated aggressively enough, turns into Pneumonia.
I have had it several times in my life, and work really hard to make sure it doesn't happen to my son.
Last year, he got bronchitis four times in five months with the last one, his bronchitis didn't go away after one round of antibiotics, so they did a chest x-ray(which thankfully came up clear), and gave him a second round, and another doctor assigned him a nebulizer, with the order to make him take breathing treatments whenever the phlegm starts to get annoying.
This year, I have given him the albuterol at the first sign of phlegm, and it has broken it up, and with the allergy medication(he's on a custom blended Zyrtec suspension), and the expectorant, he has only gotten it once this year, right after school started.

Have they checked him for allergen reactions? He could have an issue to dust mold and other airborne allergens, which triggers the initial response.

I give him Throat Coat tea by Traditional Medicinals(no sugar needed), and vitamins(he normally doesn't get them because he eats like a little horse!).

You may need a pediatric specialist to determine if it is caused by allergens or other reasons.

Hope he feels better soon.

My daughter had chronic sinus infections. They ended up giving her the phenoccocal vaccine and she is much better. (This is suppose to prevent sinus infections caused by the bacteria that also causes pneumonia) She was slightly immune compromised however. Perhaps the docs should rerun the blood work. Ask the doctors... If his titters are in the normal range then why is he getting pneumonia so frequently?

We went through the same thing. The first two years of my sons life was spent in hospitals. He has RSV, Pneumonia , MRSA in his lungs, H1N1 ext. We had every teat done, he did have reflux and that only complicated things more. We went to geneticist, pulmonoligesta and others. It was only when a set of parents at my parents church who lost their 11yr who went through similar things. He had pneumonia so much that eventually his body was immune to all antibiotics because he had been on so many over the years. My pediatricin called he old pediatrician back east and got me info. They never got a dignosis for her little boy so I knew it wasnt going to be easy for us either. My pediatrician was talking to a friend who is an allergist and he said that his PA was studying something like this. To make a long story short we did blood work and checked his IGG levels, they were in the low 100s normal is around 500. This isnt something they normally check for. Now for the last 3 yrs we have been doing weekly gammaglobuin infusions at home and we just upped the dose for the second time due to him getting gettipneumonia. He hadn't been sick i about a year and a half. He was diagnosed with Hypogammaglobulinanemia (very low immune system) all my hard work saved my sons life. Don't give up and don't just let then give you an I don't know kind of answer. Over time this is doing more damage to his lungs. Good luck.

My BIL had a viral pneumonia that wouldn't let go of him. They would treat him for "respiratory infection" and think it was all better and it would cycle back in six weeks. It kept happening for two years. I kept telling my MIL and SIL's and husband to tell the doctors to check his blood for pneumonia and to treat him for that but they didn't listen. After two years of this, it wouldn't shake because his health had deteriorated so badly. He was 30 years old with a progressive and degenerative brain disorder, and his immune system was simply failing him. That last bout when I was at the hospital in the critical care unit, I pulled a nurse aside and begged the to test him for pneumonia and it turned out that it was. Finally a doctor decided that all that time, going through his file, that it was pneumonia that was never treated aggressively enough. He ended up with toxic pneumonia. It took two weeks for him to pass away, as no treatment helped.

My point here is not scare you, but to beg you to get every battery of tests you can get the doctors to run. Have them check your son for everything. If they're certain that it's pneumonia, have them treat it more aggressively. The pneumonia can cause or aggravate asthma.

I would take him to your local Children's Hospital if you've been taking him to the pediatrician. Something chronic like this needs a specialist for the respiratory system, at least to start with.

When I grew up, I had various attacks my entire life from rhinitis, sinunitis, chronic bronchitis, pneumonia a few times, lots of pflegm and mucous, sometimes trouble with my ears (but more my lungs), etc., etc. I was "diagnosed" with exercise asthma, but since it wasn't too bad, I wasn't put on meds and told to be careful with how much I exercised.

Fast forward to adulthood. When I turned 40 a few years ago, I found out I was allergic to casein, a protein in cow's milk. I had been taking Advair for "asthma" for about 5-6 years at that time. Once I quit eating and drinking anything made out of cow's milk--ALL OF MY SYMPTOMS DISAPPEARED! I no longer have asthma and no longer take any pharma drugs for asthma. I haven't had any issues with my lungs now for the past 4 years--and winter was usually the worst time for me. AND, the really, really awful cough I used to get every winter? GONE. I suffer from none of the symptoms or "dis-eases" that I used to. At all.

I would do something as simple as taking him off all cow/dairy products (not as simple as it seems, because milk, whey, and casein seem to be in almost everything--you have to read the labels. He can have chocolate, but it needs to be dark chocolate--read the labels. No skim milk, no lactose, no milk of any kind. I usually find I have to buy dark chocolate starting at 55% cacao.) and see how much/well his system/lungs clear up. I'm sure it will make a profound difference.

I saw a naturopathic doctor myself and also discovered I have an intolerance to gluten and to soy. You might want to think about having a food test done for your son to see what he might be intolerant/allergic to. (You will have the best results if you see a naturopath to have this done. Allopathic doctors usually won't listen to you that food might be an issue, and getting the insurance to pay for the testing is usually a battle.)

Usually, if you have issues with one food, you have issues with others.

I myself am against getting flu shots and vaccines, as they severely compromise the immune system, something you don't want when a young body is trying to fend off something that doesn't like it/expelling a foreign object (in this case, food that his body can't digest/use/is seen as a foreign object).

I was actually shocked myself that something as simple as getting rid of cow dairy in my diet could have a such profound effect on my health, but that is what worked for me. The pulmologist (or whatever they call a specialist who works with lungs/asthma/allergies) was actually quite cautiously excited and interested when I blew a perfect reading (it was off the charts, actually) when I did a follow-up visit with him after I quit cow dairy. He said he "had" heard of dairy affecting people in the way it did me.

All I can say is, I'm glad to be off Advair!

Food for thought. Since your son has been so sick, taking him off all cow dairy might be worth trying.

Asthma and allergies can be lessened or eliminated with not consuming dairy and getting regular chiropractic care, strengthens the nervous and immune systems.

My son has had this problem all his life. He had RSV when he was a baby, and they said it would weaken his lungs and leave him open to bronchitis and lung problems his whole life - and it has. We try to limit exposures to people who are coughing as much as possible, and the first hint of a cough we start him on his pumps twice a day (flovent) and if he coughs for 3 days we take him to the DR. I don't know whether yours ever had RSV, but its a very common virus, and it can leave a lasting damage to lungs.