I debated sharing this blog post today – not sure why I was so on the fence, but I finally decided to hit publish. Is this post boring and random, probably, but I’m doing it anyway!

Today I’m opening up regarding health diagnosis’ in our household and how we got to this particular point.

I find it’s always comforting talking to people, hearing they are going through similar things and sharing treatments or solutions that worked for them. I am an open book when it comes to health related things (maybe I should be a little more private), BUT I want to be more knowledgeable. I was also fascinated to discover how many other people have children dealing with a similar issue.

Health chats – Seasonal “Asthma” diagnosis

A couple years ago, we had a really scary medical situation with JP. We were about to leave from our vacation house when we noticed JP on the couch breathing strange. He was napping as he was running a fever, so we packed up our stuff and left straight to an urgent care on our way home.

Upon arriving, they said his blood oxygen level was super low (I think 88-90) and he needed to be admitted immediately to ER. In recent years, he would struggle with upper respiratory illnesses – in the sense it took him longer to recover. When this was happening, I advised his doctor so we tried nebulizers and even an inhaler (without an OFFICIAL asthma diagnosis) – so when we got to ER, I brought them up to speed.

What was different is that it was August, so not yet seasonal allergy time, BUT the Canadian wildfires happened recently, so I was wondering if that was an agitator.

After some x rays, a steroid and breathing treatment – our sweet guy was looking like himself again. X-rays were all normal – other than his airway was inflamed causing his symptoms. It was so awful being away from home and we had been so scared with urgent cares’ reaction.

Okay, so fast forward to around Thanksgiving the same year. I could tell he was starting to get an upper respiratory bug again. Instead of getting better within a week, he was still holding on to it and not improving. Then, a situation we knew all too well begin to happen. After giving him his nebulizer to help open up his lungs, he became lethargic and semi-unresponsive (I think he was just very sleepy, but at the time it was frightening). I took his pulse ox and what started at 92 before the nebulizer, dropped to 88…. NOT GOOD. Off in an ambulance we went and we were back at the ER.

They ran every test – they got him on a little oxygen and put him on some steriods. He was starting to feel better, but they wanted to keep us overnight. After waiting on tests, scan results and all the things, they determined it was VIRAL and possibly pneumonia? (though nothing really showed up on scans…) I could not believe all THAT would be something viral…

I pushed that we see pulmonology to ease my mind and the doctors put us on a asthma plan in the meantime. It was a tiered approach, which I appreciated. On days where he appeared sick or was sick, it was fluticasone propionate (a steriod inhaler) in the morning, then albuterol inhaler as needed throughout the day (ideally every couple of hours), followed by the fluticasone again before bed. This REALLY helped JP and we saw significant improvement. If he was feeling better, only albuterol would be needed.

After seeing a pulminologist, he was officially NOT diagnosed with asthma. So, this was confusing for me that we didn’t find a solution to any of these crazy scares, BUT we walked away with some good advice and a good plan, which may help you if you are in a similar situation (obviously ask your own health care advisor!)

His “asthma” is triggered by illness or even potential environmental factors, so we use his fluticasone most during fall and spring. We are sporadic users and I only have him take it if I sense he is getting sick, or if its difficult for him to get over a respiratory illness. I really did not want him on any medication EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Nebulizers naturally cause oxygen saturation to dip. It is completely normal as it is essentially re-routing oxygen from the good areas to the poor circulated air pockets. This relaxed me when using the nebulizer going forward.
Speaking of nebulizers, we haven’t used his (knock on wood), I truly believe staying on top of illness with his steroid inhaler has made all the difference.
He is not abnormal having this issue. A lot of people I talked to are dealing with similar situations where they can’t pinpoint a specific cause. While it’s not entirely normal, we are not alone – and if you are dealing with it as well, solidarity!
It’s been a learning curve, but a couple things stand out to me as well. JP has always been hit hard when it comes to respiratory illnesses. The other two kiddos fare well. JP did have eczema when he was 2, but it went away. They do say, children who had eczema have a high risk of developing asthma – so I guess I should have seen it coming…

Hope this was helpful to maybe someone? Anyone? Ha! But felt inclined to share in case someone else is going through something similar! Happy Tuesday!