With the approaching of the cold winter season, the number of pediatric outpatient asthma patients in major hospitals in Nanjing has increased significantly. Doctors say asthma is easily confused with colds. If your child's cough for 5-7 days is not good, go to the hospital for examination.
Generally speaking, a cold can be cured in about a week, and there may be nasal congestion, sneezing, sore throat and even fever; while asthma generally does not get better for four weeks or even longer, and there will be wheezing, chest tightness, and difficulty breathing. Parents can use this to judge whether their child has a cold or asthma.
Pediatric asthma is a chronic, recurrent inflammatory disease of the respiratory tract. Although it is also asthma, it is different from the symptoms and prognosis of adult asthma, so it is listed separately as pediatric asthma.
Pediatric asthma is a very common disease, and the number of people affected in recent years has shown an upward trend.
Children's respiratory tract is fragile and easily stimulated by bacteria, viruses, pollen, and even hot and cold air, causing respiratory spasms, contractions to become narrow and blocked, which can trigger asthma.
What are the symptoms if your child develops pediatric asthma?
Symptoms of asthma in children:
1. Cough, coughing sputum
Cough in children with asthma often occurs at night or early in the morning, most of which are dry coughs, generally without symptoms such as fever and sore throat, but occasionally there is sputum, and the sputum is sticky sputum without color or white;
2. Wheezing due to difficulty breathing
Unlike normal wheezing, the wheezing here is actually caused by difficulty breathing. Manifestations are wheezing, thick breathing, whistling in the throat, chest tightness, suffocation, etc., mostly at night or in the early morning;
3． other
When your child's condition worsens, chest pain, blackening of the lips and nails, and three concave signs may occur, that is, the skin between the ribs, on the sternum, and on the collarbone is sunken inward due to hard breathing. If left untreated, life can be in danger.
So, if there are pediatric asthma patients at home, what should we pay attention to?
Parents should pay attention to changes in weather, heat and cold, temperature to prevent colds and fevers;
If the child has symptoms of coughing and sneezing, parents should pay attention to the condition and seek medical treatment in time;
Children's clothing fabrics should be carefully selected, try to choose pure cotton clothing, to avoid animal fur clothing caused by allergic asthma;
The living environment should be kept dry, clean and clean, and try to avoid places covered with dust and irritating odors;
Minimize excessive emotional fluctuations such as crying and laughing.
If a child suffers from asthma, parents cannot blindly wait for self-healing without treatment. According to the actual situation, if the condition is serious and cannot be effectively controlled, the child will be repeatedly inflamed due to the airway and irreversible injuries will occur. Therefore, even if the child's asthma is mild, it is possible to alleviate itself, and actively cooperate with the doctor's treatment.
Speaking of this, there may be parents who have doubts, all have coughs, how should we distinguish whether the child is asthma or pneumonia?
To distinguish whether a child has asthma or pneumonia, you can refer to the following points:
Pneumonia is mostly due to inflammation caused by bacterial infection, and pediatric asthma is mostly caused by allergies, so whether allergic is the most important difference between pediatric asthma and pneumonia.
Whether it is recurrent, pneumonia in children is mostly caused by bacterial infections. Most can be cured in one go, while childhood asthma recurs once exposed to allergens.
The main manifestation of pneumonia patients is cough, cough sputum is yellow, there is fever, chest pain, and even coughing up blood, asthma is mostly manifested as sudden breathing difficulties, there is a phenomenon of bruising. Although there is also a cough, it is mostly dry, and even if there is phlegm, it is white or white sticky sputum.