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Chronic cough/congestion in 1 year old???

3K views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  dillonandmarasmom 
#1 ·
So my daughter has been coughing this icky, throaty, congested cough since before December. At first we assumed it was a cold and she'd get over it, then my son had whooping cough and we thought she'd gotten a touch of it, too. But, now she is still coughing and gagging up flem.

It basically happens most when she just goes off to sleep, whether in bed or in her carseat. She'll be asleep for a few moments nad she suddenly begins to cough and sneeze. She sometimes gags and a bit of flem comes out. I can almost set my watch to her cough in her carseat. She'll fall asleep and within about 2 minutes it starts. It seems to be most prevalent when the air conditioner is on, though it happens when it is not on, too.

I know she's sick of it. And I ma sure her poor litlle tummy muscles get sore. Probably her throat, too.

Any wise words, BTDT's or advice would be sooooo appreciated! I don't want to make an appointment until I've tried everything.

OH, we just cleaned molld from our bedroom wall this past weekend (it was behind the dresser in our room where we all sleep) and she's still coughing...

TIA sooo much!
 
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#2 ·
My dd did this. it was allergies. I am not sure what the problem was exactly. It resolved itself when we moved to our own home and ripped out all the carpet. She will start coughing badly within 48 hours of being in a home with carpet (think vacations etc
). in case you are wondering if this is something they grow out of she is 9 1/2 she also has trouble with mildew but thatis more seasonal and only last about 2-3 weeks. we just cope.

It got very bad. it started turning into pnumonia regularly and she was on a nebulizer for at leas 1 week out of every 6. there was never a time when she wasn't coughing and wheezing. she was being diagnosed as having bronchitis but got the diagnosis over 12 times in 9 months. then they diagnosed her with asthma but she wasn't exactly having asthma attacks. I happened in our old house which had 5 layers of nasty carpet (apparerntly they would just put the new over the old. we didn't know it until we were cleaning to move out. so gross) and it happened in the new construction we moved into. I think it was the dust in the carpet. it doesn't matter how clean or new it is. carpet traps dust. and most vaccuums do a fairly crappy job of getting it up. when we pulled the carpet out of this place it had just been professionally cleaned. as in it was still damp. we threw away over 40 gallons of dust on each floor (about 500 square ft of carpet on each) and the traffic route from the door for about 20 feet was soft and mildew-y all the way through the wood. and the carpet was about 3-4 years old. when I think about how much dust I sweep us daily now off the floor it gives me a good idea how little my vaccuum picked up and how much was trapped in the carpet. I sweep up enough to fill up a vaccuum cleaner bag every 1-2 weeks. I never changed that frequently.

So if it happends as soon as you turn your AC on I would definitely check you filter, put in an allergy one and have your ducts cleaned. also if you have carpet consider getting rid of it. area rugs are better if you must because you can easily roll them back and sweep underneath them. if you can't get al the carpet up can you do just her rom or move her bed to a carpet free area (we had trouble mostly at night in the beginning.)
 
#3 ·
Thanks for your reply! We have wood floors. But, we do have a very dusty house! I vaccuum almost daily, but I can say that my DH has horrid allergies and they are exasserbated by the a/c. We definitely need a new filter--great idea!! We are sooo bad at changing it!


Our thoughts were allergies, too. How can we find out what she has problems with? It's hard to eliminate things...I guess changing the filter would help...you think that may be the same issue in the car?? Maybe hte a/c blowing stuff aorund???

The wheels are turnin...
 
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