Despite being an RN, this is not my area and I appear to have maxed out my knowledge base. 
DD2 is 3.5 years old, she has always had respiratory issues. She was born full term but was exposed to pertussis at birth, poor kids never stood a chance. 
She was completely O2 dependent until 7 months of age, has had RSV twice, pneumonia several times a year, croup, etc... She has been on inhalers since age 1, we started off using them just when she was ill, and now it has moved to her using them all winter and then taking summer break. She never wheezes unless she is ill with pneumonia, if not using inhalers then her cough never goes away. She will cough for months, start inhalers and the cough goes away.
She is sick often, until age 2.5 she had never ever gone longer than 1.5 weeks in her entire life without being ill. For the past year it is better, but she is sick every month at least with something but we do have breaks between illness that we never had before. She still gets ill very quickly though. She started getting eczema this year as well. no signs of food allergies. My oldest had many signs of allergies, I did have DD2 tested as a baby, she had none then.
My biggest issue is that I live in a very rural area, we go to the only pedi practice in the area. pedi pulmonologists do not exist here. The nearest Children's Hospital is 7 hours away. Our pedi has called up there several times about DD2 when she was a baby but DD2 has never gone there. Our doc just keeps saying to give her time. I had a long conversation last week with her about DD2, I think she needs more care, a treatment plan in place, is this asthma or not, possible CT. She has never had one, we don't know what her lungs look like, she gets x-rays with pneumonia but that is it. I am tired of all ER visits, feeling like we can never go out of town because who knows what will happen with her. We finally went to FL last month and she ended up in the hospital there with croup.
I adore our doc but she doesn't agree with me and I know time has come to do something else. I am considering pushing for a referral to a Children's. Suggestions, thoughts?
ETA: Forgot to mention that we have horrid insurance, they cover very little of our medical bills. We pay over 1K a month for inhalers, DD1's therapy, that cost does not include the actual cost of the crappy insurance which isn't cheap and then any doc visits or hospital trips so everything is out of pocket. Nice, eh.
DD2 is 3.5 years old, she has always had respiratory issues. She was born full term but was exposed to pertussis at birth, poor kids never stood a chance. She was completely O2 dependent until 7 months of age, has had RSV twice, pneumonia several times a year, croup, etc... She has been on inhalers since age 1, we started off using them just when she was ill, and now it has moved to her using them all winter and then taking summer break. She never wheezes unless she is ill with pneumonia, if not using inhalers then her cough never goes away. She will cough for months, start inhalers and the cough goes away.She is sick often, until age 2.5 she had never ever gone longer than 1.5 weeks in her entire life without being ill. For the past year it is better, but she is sick every month at least with something but we do have breaks between illness that we never had before. She still gets ill very quickly though. She started getting eczema this year as well. no signs of food allergies. My oldest had many signs of allergies, I did have DD2 tested as a baby, she had none then.
My biggest issue is that I live in a very rural area, we go to the only pedi practice in the area. pedi pulmonologists do not exist here. The nearest Children's Hospital is 7 hours away. Our pedi has called up there several times about DD2 when she was a baby but DD2 has never gone there. Our doc just keeps saying to give her time. I had a long conversation last week with her about DD2, I think she needs more care, a treatment plan in place, is this asthma or not, possible CT. She has never had one, we don't know what her lungs look like, she gets x-rays with pneumonia but that is it. I am tired of all ER visits, feeling like we can never go out of town because who knows what will happen with her. We finally went to FL last month and she ended up in the hospital there with croup.
I adore our doc but she doesn't agree with me and I know time has come to do something else. I am considering pushing for a referral to a Children's. Suggestions, thoughts?ETA: Forgot to mention that we have horrid insurance, they cover very little of our medical bills. We pay over 1K a month for inhalers, DD1's therapy, that cost does not include the actual cost of the crappy insurance which isn't cheap and then any doc visits or hospital trips so everything is out of pocket. Nice, eh.
