Tonight I heard the cough and I panicked immediately. I think my 5 year old daughter has pertusiss. Now I can't sleep and I am reading everything I can find about what I should do next. I will take her in to see the doc tomorrow but I see lots of people taking high doses of vitamin C. What other natural remedies are there? Looking for a sticky with a comprehensive list of all I need to know but can't find it. It looks like a lot of people choose to take antibiotics along with C. I am worried about her being contagious. I have 4 other kids and we have a small house. Luckily my youngest is 3. I haven't vaccinated the children. Please share what you can.
Other articles say early antibiotics can save a lot of headaches and the quarantine period lasts only 5 days after starting an antibiotic regimen. (vs 3or 4 weeks?)
Should I go to the doctor? She will recommend antibiotics for sure.
How do you work the quarantine aspect? I can't keep her in her room for 3 weeks? Can I?
Do I need to keep my other children at home to be responsible (even if they are not exhibiting symptoms?)
This is the aspect that makes me rethink the antibiotic road. Keeping everyone at home for 3 weeks seems overwhelming.
My 2yo had pertussis earlier this year. She wasn't particularly sick with it. She wasn't diagnosed until after the first 3 weeks but I would have done ABs if we'd known earlier as a 3 week quarantine would have been very disrupting to our lives. However, I have no problem with the judicious use of antibiotics so the decision isn't a hard one for me.
Where we are, it takes about a week to get the swab results back. You could consider quarantine for a week and then do ABs if the results are positive. It does increase the risk to your other children though as I doubt there is a way to effectively separate them for two weeks. I think you probably have to assume that they're all going to get it and prepare accordingly.
My 2yo had pertussis earlier this year. She wasn't particularly sick with it. She wasn't diagnosed until after the first 3 weeks but I would have done ABs if we'd known earlier as a 3 week quarantine would have been very disrupting to our lives. However, I have no problem with the judicious use of antibiotics so the decision isn't a hard one for me.
Where we are, it takes about a week to get the swab results back. You could consider quarantine for a week and then do ABs if the results are positive. It does increase the risk to your other children though as I doubt there is a way to effectively separate them for two weeks. I think you probably have to assume that they're all going to get it and prepare accordingly.
Wow. A week to get the results. That is a long time. If we are going to do ABs, I'd like to start ASAP to contain as much as possible. I saw there was more than one test online....I wonder if any of them yields results faster. I also wonder if my NP would start us on ABs without the positive culture? We usually stay away from ABs but maybe this is one time to jump in?
Also, I still breastfeed my 5 and 3 year olds. Hopefully this will help with the severity and duration of WC (like with other bugs)? Maybe I should encourage more frequent nursing than they have been doing (mostly just in the morning or at night).
Interesting. My 8yo was just diagnosed with whooping cough. He was in the waiting room with my husband and had a coughing fit- the urse came out and said "Who was that? You need to come back here with me right now, that is whooping cough." The doc confirmed and he got antibiotics. But the characteristic was the bark of a seal sound- the nurses called him their little seal. I feel that may have been a misdiagnosis because seal cough is distinctly croup. In any case, after just 1 day the antibotics did their work and he was feeling much better, hardly any coughing and of course fever abated. We all worse masks for Christmas since we were traveling and around the elderly. He was vaccinated btw.
Hmmm. She is not barky...I would not have panicked if I heard that sound. Been there. Done that. It was the cough cough, gasp cough cough. I wonder if one can have the distinctive sound and not have wc. I am grasping at straws here. I am scared.
We live in such a small rural community. I am wondering how on earth this could have found us.
If it is WC you would probably want to get your child on antibiotics. If you catch it early enough it can reduce the duration of the cough (by killing the bacteria early with abx, you can limit the amount of toxin released by the bacteria). Prophylactic antibiotics would probably be recommended for your other kids to prevent potential infection altogether, but if they remain asymptomatic it might be a good idea to wait til you at least get a positive culture before you get abx for anyone else.
I would go easy on any additional supplements, but that's just me.
I'm sure your NP will start ABs without the test. I understood from your first posts that you were hoping to avoid them, that's why I suggested testing. If you don't mind using them (and I think they're warranted, for what it's worth) then I don't think there will be an issue starting them today.
My daughter had ABs before her test results. Although, in that case, we weren't sure if it was pertussis or another chest infection which was going around at the time.
Have you started vitamin C?
If you are still unsure, try it for a day or two, I think you will be very surprised. Do Sodium ascorbate (best) or ascorbic acid (it's effective and what was used in old studies) just don't do calcium ascorbate.
There are medical studies on Vit. C efficacy as a Pertussis treatment from Canada, Japan and Netherlands. Even at 500 mg per day (which is low) the results are impressive (compared to the typically long duration of the disease). Space out the dosages though, saturation of the tissues doesn't occur at one daily dose (the excess is just excreted).
I wish you and yours the best.
I agree with the pp. Start the dr. Humphries vit c regiment asap. Pertussis is a toxin mediated disease so as the toxins build up from the infection, so does the mucus and difficulty breathing. Vit c helps get rid of those toxins so the burden on the lungs is less and less. Even if it's not pertussis, vit c can help, its not going to hurt to do it. Personally, I'd get the test done. It sounds like ruling it out will help you sleep better and if it is positive, you'll know how to care for the rest of the family. Truly, of all the research for pertussis treatment without going the abx route, the dr humphries vit c is the best.
You'll also want to get the test as proof that this child has had the disease and therefore doesn't need the vaccine (if you need documentation for schools and such).
Pertussis is not barky. It is "whoopy." Hard to describe that. My son has had both--croup many times, and pertussis. Croup is like a seal, Pertussis is very different.
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