Cough - Denver,NC

Well first of all, if her cough is that bad she may need a liquid steroid and breathing treatments. It is according to how long it has been going on. Is she coughing up anything? If so does it have a color? She could have Bronchitis and need and antibiotic to go with a cough supressant. I just got over that. Is she wheezing? I guess what I am saying is she needs to be seen asap by a physician. Get a dr excuse. They do not want her ther not knowing what she has anyway, at school. So miss school aand no problem if you have a dr excuse. Hope she feels better! You can request the school to have her school work ready to pick up at the end of the day, so she can keep up.

There are so many viruses going around right now, I would head to the doctor to make sure it's "just a cold" or "just a virus". As a teacher, I would rather a parent keep a kid home just in case than expose an entire classroom full of students and staff to another virus. It sounds cold, but some of the stuff going around has wiped out up to 20% of my class in one week! I would e-mail the teacher and explain your predicament and tell her that you're going to the doctor, but is there anything you can work on at home?

Could she have whooping cough? Whooping cough is a long string of coughs in succession, followed by a drawing in of air, because the person gets breathless. The worst cough i ever had turned out to be whopping cough. No cough syrup works, and nights are restless, to say the least- it is much worse at night.
Yes, you can still get it after vaccination. The vaccine wears off after about 8-10 years. My kids who were vaccinated 4 and 7 years before I had it, all got it, but it was much less agressive on them than it was on me!
If you decide you want to have the doc do a bacterial test for it, you have to test it within the first 10 days or some thing like that.

If she is coughing badly, you should keep her home. She will be miserable in school anyway, and you sure don't want to spread an infectious illness. Some kids are immunocompromised get much sicker from things than others.

Hope she gets well soon,
Gail

I cough almost uncontrollably with my asthma and all that calms me is an albuterol breathing treatment when calm controlled breathing doesn't work. Sometimes I can stop coughing by trying not to breath in very quickly.

When I get sick this is what I do:

When I get alot of mucous I take the wal-mart brand of Mucinex.
If my ears start bothering me (itching or aching)... I take Benadryl
(allergies cause asthma).

It also helps for me to drink alot of water and get plenty of sleep.

I hope your daughter gets better soon.

I spent my whole life with a cough like that. I had my tonsils out and everything, nothing worked. A couple of years ago turns out I have had Asthma and bronchitis the whole time. When it's bad I need antibiotics. I live in Conover and just had a bad case of it. Good luck and I hope that helps.

Whooping Cough has made a come back. Take her to the doctor. Better not to risk infecting others if this is serious.

take her to the Dr as early as possible. Less germs in the waiting room, and less waiting in general. I once let my 10 yr old go around with a cough, thinking it would resolve on its own. after we had a power outage and she slept with me for the night i noticed she was coughing at night too. turned out she had walking pnuemonia. her only symtopn was a cough and general tiredness. i learned my lesson big time. I hope your daughter is okay.

I would keep her home for at least 2 reasons. 1) she hasn't had enough sleep and she's also distracted by her cough and would thus not benefit from being in school; and 2) her cough will distract the other students. Getting work to do at home if she's out of school for more than a day or two will help her keep up.

Many years ago a doctor told me that the best otc med for cough contains guifenisan. That's not the correct spelling but looks something like that.

If they have Mucinex for children, I highly recommend using that. I buy the generic and if I'm congested I get the "Mucinex D" which also contains an expectorant.

If she doesn't have a fever it's highly unlikely that she has whooping cough.

get her to the doc it may be asthma cough. if no meds are working its leaning strongly to asthma. Only a doc can tell you for sure and don't panic when you read this I could be wrong. I am not a doc

Hi C., I feel for you and especially your daughter. The way it sounds to me, I would make her appt, asap. Even if you can't get her in until the afternoon or evening, if she is coughing that bad, she would be miserable at school. If she hasn't slept, she isn't going to be on top of her game to learn, and IF she would be contagious, she would be passing it around to others and may end up with it again. I wouldn't send her to school if she were mine...she needs to rest. Have you tried vicks vapor rub on her chest. My grandma would use old pieces of t-shirt material, heat it with and iron and put vicks in the middle of the folded cloth. She would put that on my chest and cover me up, it helped me and it has helped my children in the past. May give her some relief before the drs appt. Good Luck and God Bless!!
G.

Why are you waiting to take her to the doctor. It sounds like the over the counter stuff is not working. She may need an antibiotic. Also, they can give her cough meds that can help her sleep. I know she is young but I had this too recently and the meds really did the trick. Good luck!