Emma Howard: Hello, I’m Emma Howard and I am joined by Dr. Su Laurent, who is a consultant pediatrician at Barnet Hospital in Hertfordshire. Hello Su.
Dr. Su Laurent: Hello Emma.
Emma Howard: I have a question here from a mom or a dad and not sure which about their 18 month old son who get some wheezy when he has a cold and that is this asthma they want to know and if it is asthma what they can do about it.
Dr. Su Laurent: Wheezing with cold is actually very common in toddlers and babies and many, many babies will do this just with cold and it will turn out not to the asthma just be a bit of virulent induced wheeze we call it. However, if you come from the kind of family where a lot of other people have got asthma or eczema or hay fever, an allergic type of family, the chances are its more likely to turn out to be asthma.
Emma Howard: So as usual family history plays a really important part.
Dr. Su Laurent: Yes, its really important here and also at about 18 months many of the viral wheezes, it is baby viral wheezes will that be outgrowing it, where as if your child is still wheezing with cold after 18 months then its going to be more likely to turn out to be asthma.
Emma Howard: And so you should go along to your GP.
Dr. Su Laurent: So what should you do? Yes, when the first thing is absolutely no cigarette smoke must come anywhere near your baby or child. There is a lot of evidence now lot of research to show that it makes things a lot worse for these babies particularly under five so no cigarette smoke and that’s even the parents who say they don’t smoke in the house for they only smoke in the garden I’m afraid they have just got to not to smoke at all and its really amazing how many asthmatic parents are also smokers.
So that’s the first thing and secondly yes your GP can help because with wheeze you can treat with an inhaler when given through what we call volumatic spacer and then you give a couple of puffs though, the baby or the child breathe in and out and actually make a like huge difference opens the airways, it relaxes the muscles around the airways and lets them open and that’s the baby breathe much more easily.
Emma Howard: And there are different strengths for those inhalers because some people are worried that you will give big shot of steroid but actually that you great them.
Dr. Su Laurent: Well, there are two sorts of inhalers, there is a steroid inhaler which is a preventer and there is the blue inhaler which is actually the treatment, this is Salbutamol or Terbutaline and it’s a treatment inhaler and what I would recommend in the first place is just using the treatment when the child is wheezy but if your child is getting wheezy a lot then your GP may recommend using a preventive inhaler as well.
Emma Howard: Su, marvelous advice. Thank you very much for this and if you have a similar problem we hope we might have given you some help but remember its always best to go and see your own doctor for medical advice. Thanks for watching, we will be back with more health questions and answers.
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