Pertussis/SA-could use some information

[Mamatoto2]

I'm sorry this is so long. I'm so grateful in advance for your attention/thoughts....

My older DD is almost 7. My younger DD is 3.5 yrs. Both are not vaxed for pertussis. There are several children in their school who have pertussis right now, one of whom is in DD#1's class and was present at school for around 2 weeks before realizing that his cough was in fact pertussis. I am fairly confident at this point that DD#1 has caught it. Her symptoms began 9 days ago (on a Friday) with a tiny bit of a cough, an occasional sneeze and just a report that she didn't feel great. We kept her home from school because it was right before a 3-day weekend and we figured there was no reason to push it. She was generally fine, in good spirits, good energy but with a nagging dry cough that got a bit worse as the days passed, but was nothing terribly unusual for a grade school girl in the winter months.

We sent her to school back to school on Tu. as a dry nagging cough was her only symptom whatsoever and there seemed no reason to keep her home. That afternoon, I received notice that there was Pertussis at school and in her classroom, but there were also several children with coughs so we assumed that DD just had a cough. On Wed. I started dosing her with SA. I got about 3000mg. into her throughout the day. Thur. she got about 5000mg, and by Fri we were up closer to 6000-7000mg (she weighs about 50 lbs.). She never reached bowel tolerance. By Thursday night, the coughing was getting bad enough to disrupt her sleep on occasion, although it was still dry and "superficial" sounding. She had a school field trip Fri that would have involved an hour+ outside in the freezing cold, so we opted to keep her home. We still didn't really think that she fit the pertussis profile, and it was only even on our radar because we knew that she had been exposed at school.

By Sat morning (Day 9 from onset of first symptom,) her cough started to deepen in sound. Sounded fuller and a bit "chestier." This morning (Day 10), she woke at 5:45am with a pretty bad coughing episode (or series of episodes perhaps). She said that she couldn't breathe, and there was a bit of a gasping sound between coughing jags-not exactly a whoop, but a clear intense drawing of breath. She also began sneezing again today with a fair amount of clear nasal discharge with sneezes (this is unusual for her-she generally doesn't have goopy sneezes). Not sure if the sneeze/discharge symptom is a good one or a bad one. ETA: After listening to recordings of whooping coughs, it sounds pretty spot on with DD#1's cough.

My younger DD also woke this morning with sneezing and a clear runny nose (no cough yet).

So, here are my questions/challenges....I have not sought out medical attention for either girl yet. I don't want DD#1 to have to be hauled around and get a throat/nose swab (which would undoubtedly be traumatic for her) unless it will lead to some meaningful treatment. From what I read about antibiotic use it would not help her in any way at this point and would probably make matters worse. We're giving her homeopathic pertussinum as well as other homeopathic cough goodies (drosera, spongia tosta, etc.) every 2 hours, about 7000-8000mg SA/day throughout the day, Umcka, simple, clean foods (homemade broths, homemade organic apple sauce, etc). She's already gluten/casein free. We're limiting sugar but she is getting a fair amount because I'm only able to get her to take the SA in lemonade at this point (lesser evil I decided). I'm using steam/warm baths when she requests them, Eucalyptus salve on chest/feet, a cool mist humidifier in her room, Rescue Remedy Kids in response to bad episodes, and lots of physical/emotional support throughout episodes. The problem is, despite all of this, she's clearly progressing with the illness, and I'm fearful about her prognosis at this rate (I think that we have a lot of really scary nights ahead, probably starting tonight). Is there any other intervention that I should explore/consider for her?

Now, for DD#2....She may be in the very beginning stages of what may become pertussis for her. If so, I would consider today to be symptom day #1. First, I should say that she has never had antibiotics. I do not consider them lightly, but should I consider them now if they might prevent her from getting pertussis if we start them asap? I am afraid of her getting pertussis at this point for many reasons...#1, she's pretty young and I worry about the severity of the illness for her. #2 She hates congestion of any kind. She won't blow her nose, let me wipe/suction it, and she perseverates on "stuffies"-they cause her great distress. I think that she would be totally freaked out by pertussis. #3/4 (BIG PROBLEMS) I am on bed rest due to pregnancy complications. So far, DH does most of the physical work when DD#1 is struggling. He can't be helping both girls at once throughout the night though. As it is, I have been up way too much and losing too much sleep just trying to help DD#1 and it is causing some problems for my pregnancy (increased pain, possible contractions, etc-I'm 30w4d and have been on bed rest for 15+ weeks). Also, I'm having a baby in 7.5 weeks. A vulnerable newborn who might have immature lungs due to a C-S at 38 weeks and for whom pertussis could be life-threatening. I will have it in 7.5 weeks or sooner as I have to have a scheduled c-sect due to a classical incision on my uterus and the complications from this pregnancy. I absolutely can't have pertussis in the house with my newborn. From what I understand pertussis can be contagious for up to 3 weeks after the onset of the paroxysmal cough, which may not develop in DD#2 for a couple weeks yet (or even longer since she may not catch pertussis from DD#1 for another couple weeks if she doesn't actually have it now). That would leave open the possibility that pertussis will be in the house with new baby and also the possibility that we'll have 2 children in the house simultaneously having paroxysmal cough episodes throughout the night with only one able-bodied parent, OR worse yet, one able-bodied parent, a newborn, and a post-op mom. I can't fathom those scenarios.

So, fill my head...I read the research about the problems of antibiotic use for treatment of pertussis, and I'm pretty clear that we're going to have to just "ride the wave" for DD#1 (with more helpful treatment suggestions from you all, I hope). What about antibiotic use for prevention of full-blown pertussis in DD#2 if she's either in the very initial stages or very vulnerable to catching it from DD#1? What about antibiotic use to limit the possibility of DD#2 being contagious to new baby?

Normally, I'm pretty confident in my commitment/ability to weather the illness storms with my kids, but between the length/severity of pertussis, the bed rest/pregnancy , the newborn on the horizon, and the timing of this all, I'm just in a panic about my ability to get everyone through this safely.

Please share whatever food for thought/information that you might have.
Thank you!!!

[Mosaic]

Moving to health and healing...

[tanyalynn]

When I was looking at WC info in November, it seemed like the contagious period was supposed to be 21 days from onset of cough, IIRC?

We had something that fit, in terms of symptoms, but because of the timing, we didn't test--kids were clearly too sick to travel for Thanksgiving, and the contagious period was only a week beyond that. My kids really needed extra zinc, it's something to think about in terms of nutritional support. We have health stuff going on for which I supplement a lot of nutrients, including zinc, and this is the first illness that has caused low zinc symptoms in either kid. Are you at bowel tolerance yet with the SA? That seemed to affect my daughter quite a bit, if I dropped back, the coughing the next day was worse.

You know the health of your younger child better than anyone else. I was surprised that DS, 3.5yo, coughed much less and much more mildly than DD, who was close to her 6th birthday. Does your younger child tend to get sicker, or do coughing illnesses affect her more? You may see a different course just based on her response--strangely, my son tends to get sick more often than my daughter, but this illness was easier for him than her. And if you start treating with bowel tolerance SA from the beginning, that may affect the course as well. I've also read that some folks need supplemental pre-formed vitamin A, I didn't have any on-hand so I didn't try it, but it's something to consider, and toxicity doesn't happen until someone gets fairly high doses for extended periods. Look it up, I was surprised, and that data is in healthy people, not sick people whose immune systems are working overtime.

My kids always need more SA than the usual guidelines suggest, I think it's normally 375 mg/kg body weight for pertussis, which translates to 1.7 grams per 10 lbs body weight. Mine needed more.

If you do decide on antibiotics, you'd need them for yourself and your DH as well. My DH and I didn't get that sick, I was surprised (I had titers drawn a few years ago for myself and they were quite low), but we were coughing through the same period so I assume it was the same illness, albeit fairly mild.

Best of luck deciding what to do, seems like a tricky situation.

[newmum35]

pulled up an old thread and just wondered what happened were your 2 DD diagnosed/ tested for pertussis, if so was it positive? How did things go & did you have your baby yet?

[Mamatoto2]

Um, sorry that it took me forever and a day to respond. You posted less than a week after I gave birth and things kind of got lost in the shuffle....SO DD#1 undoubtedly had WC. We didn't have her tested, but she had the classic cough, coughed to the point of vomiting, etc. DD#2 might have had WC but if she did it was a far milder case. She had a number of nights where she was waking up with bad coughing jags, but they were never as severe as my oldest's. In all, we kept the girls home from school for a month and we reintegrated DD#1 back to school very slowly (her stamina just wasn't there to jump back into full days so we started with about 2 hrs/day and worked up to full days with outside play time). During the height of the illness (which was a period of several weeks) DH slept in bed with DD#1 propped up and DD#2 slept in bed propped up with me. Every time the girls would cough day or night a parent, grandparent, relative, or someone would be there to hold them, comfort them, and coach them through the cough. We dosed them with SA and homeopathics every 2 hrs. during waking hours and as needed throughout the night. It seemed to make a significant difference. DD#1 had the cough for just about the classic 100 days. Toward the end it was triggered more by things like physical exertion and drinking cold liquids. Now that it's been 8 months since the onset of symptoms, I would say that it's been totally gone for a while, but that cough lasted a long long time.

Interestingly enough, the cough seemed to impact just about every child in DD's class, and they ranged from fully vaxed, to partially vaxed for WC to totally unvaxed kids. Some saw doctors and were told that they did NOT have WC, some were told it was allergies or just a bad cough, etc. Nobody else in the class had a positive Dx that I know of (DD included since we didn't take her to a Dr. given that she already met the CDC criteria for a Dx of WC having been a "close contact" of a known case subsequently manifesting with Sx of the illness). DD's birthday party was about 6 weeks after the onset of her cough and we had 7-8 kids from her class over and they were all coughing up a storm and many sounded just like she did.

It was not a fun illness to say the least, complicated of course by my bed rest, but we got through it. DH and I never came down with any Sx, and I'd be interested to find out if DD#2 really had it. It seemed like she did, but her case was a walk in the park compared to DD#1. I had a beautiful baby boy at the end of March and I brought him home to a healthy environment with two doting big sisters.

So, thanks for asking. I added this all because when I was in the thick of it I would have wanted to find a post that said what it was like before, during, and after....here it is

[onetrumpeter]

wow, thanks for sharing your pertussis experience. Our kids have had zero vax and I'm constantly questioning; should we? should we? it's always been an issue of ok, what are the positives/negatives, what are the risks either way? i think I'm sufficiently scared of pertussis now... I'd never actually looked up the whooping cough (though some vax maker has some ad that pops up in my email frequently - "hear the cough" or something like that). I did look up pertussis on youtube though and it sounds very scary. Perhaps we'll reconsider the DTaP... it's been a while since I researched. Oy. Thanks again, momma for sharing about what it was like. I'm so glad you all got through it OK but it sounds like it was rough for a while.

[Mamatoto2]

Just wanted to respond....It would be a lie to say that the experience was not difficult or scary, but I would still prefer that we went the routs that we did vs. vax. We never took the non-vaxing decision lightly and we responded in the way that we were absolutely committed to doing (kept the kids home and supported them physically and emotionally through their illnesses). The sickness was lengthy, but time-limited nonetheless. One thing that it also taught me was that the pertussis vax is not terribly helpful anyway (not great efficacy and the protection fades over time). The majority of the students in DD's class had the illness and some of them were fully vaxed, some partially vaxed for pertussis and some non-vaxed. Most of their doctors misdiagnosed the cough as something else (bronchitis, asthma, etc.) but DD had her birthday party about 6 weeks after the start of her cough and I had half the class in my house and can say for sure that MANY of them had her same exact cough even though they has not been Dx with pertussis.

Of course, you need to go with your own instincts, but I am 100% pleased with my choice not to vax my kids for many many reasons and I would go through pertussis while on bed rest again in a heartbeat if it meant that my kids would avoid all of the other negatives of vaxes.