Tell-tale signs your child might have asthma as nurse issues warning

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A respiratory specialist nurse has issued a warning about the telltale signs a child’s cough which may be caused by asthma.Children can often have brief periods of coughing caused by viruses, hay fever or common colds.

But when these coughs persist for weeks, there's a chance it could be sparked by the most common long-term condition among children – asthma.World Asthma Day falls on Tuesday, May 2, which aims to spread awareness of the condition which affects 1.1 million children and young people in the UK who are treated – that’s around two kids in every classroom.Deborah Waddell, a respiratory specialist nurse at A+LUK, explained that children with asthma usually suffer from the same tell-tale symptoms. “Children can cough for a variety of reasons, so it’s important to look at the whole picture,” she stressed. “All children will have a cough at some point in their lives when they get a cold or virus, particularly when they first start mixing with other children at nursery or school.“Talking to a doctor or nurse about the nature of the cough – such as whether it’s wet or dry, when it happens, or what makes it worse or better – can help provide important clues as to why they may be coughing.“However, children with asthma are likely to have some or all of the characteristic features of asthma.”These include…A typical asthma cough in a child, says Waddell, may be “a dry cough which can wake them up and interrupt their sleep”.

Such coughs either won’t go away or keep coming back, and are common at night or in the early morning.And Dr Atul Gupta, a consultant in paediatric respiratory medicine at King’s College Hospital, London, adds: “Frequent dry coughing that worsens with a viral infection, occurs during sleep or is