PJmomrunner
Well-known member
I haven't been online a lot lately as I've been very busy in the volunteer realm, have been diligently exercising, and I've been dealing with sick teenagers.
Starting March 27, my son came down with a sore throat followed by symptoms of a common cold. Days later, on March 31, we left for Spring Break in Aruba. My son was mildly ill the entire trip, not wanting to do much of anything, but not disabled either. That was stressful because it's hard to let your kid sit in a hotel room for a week+ when you've gone through the trouble to travel great distances for wonderful weather and new experiences in a foreign land. But sit he did, for the most part. On one of the flights home he had a big coughing fit and threw up--NOT into the airsick bag and NOT because of airsickness. He repeated that performance a couple times on Easter Sunday and went to school feeling crummy on the following Monday--he'd missed two days before break and couldn't afford to miss more. I took him to the doctor's after school that Monday where he was diagnosed with a sinus infection and given a prescription for augmentin. He continued to go to school and mentioned sometime late in the week that he couldn't breathe for a minute or so after coughing and wondered if he might have asthma. "No, honey, you can't just 'catch' asthma," I said and pretty much forgot about it. On Tuesday evening (April 10th, now) I witnessed a coughing spell. It lasted about 30 seconds without a breath (that's a REALLY long time) and was followed by another minute of loud "whooping" inspirations and vomiting. Holy moley, was I ever freaked out! "Is THAT what you meant by not being able to breath???," I asked. He confirmed that it was what he meant.
Well, after consulting with friend Nurse Mary, I headed for the trusty computer and googled "coughing followed by sucking for air." Hit after hit referred to whooping cough. Off to the doctors we went first thing in the morning. I told the doctor of Henry's history (which SO fit whooping cough) and was told, "no, no, it's viral...when we see hoof prints we think horses not zebras." I acknowledged that he was probably right, but requested that he be tested for whooping cough anyway. The kindly doc humored me: chest xray, blood panel, Pertussis nasal swab: all negative. Mom still not convinced (because while waiting for results I had--thank you google--discovered they were likely to be negative now that we were three weeks into the illness).
Flash forward to Sunday night, April 29: My daughter has a big coughing fit (and had been coughing--"but really, it's just a cold," I told myself--for at least two weeks) followed by fruitless inspirations for at least a minute, finished off by vomiting. Ugh!!! Off to the doctors we go (different doc from son's). I present the doctor with my documentation of my son's illness and my suspicions. He listens intently, leaves the room for a minute or two during which we can hear him outside telling his nurse he's going to prescribe zithromycin for my daughter, my husband and myself. He comes back in and tells me he is "highly suspicious" of whooping cough and is going to treat us all and test my daughter.
This morning I received the call: the test is positive for pertussis. Call the school, call my son's doctor, call the mom of the kids she babysits for, call the mom of the kid who carpools with us, stands next to her in choir and performed closely with her last weekend, talk with the county health department, family, school some more, health department some more, friends...whew! I'm drained.
Whooping cough is not what you might think in these days of immunization. Both kids had been fully and appropriately immunized. Symptoms are fairly mild in that they are infrequent--my kids only coughed 5-7 times a day at peak (actually, my daughter's just now peaking, so who knows), whereas in the the pre-immunization days (from whence the textbook descriptions come) people had 50+ bouts a day. Between coughing fits they are fine--clear lungs, no fever, feel just fine. Doctors don't diagnose it because they think of it as an illness of extreme coughing that surely they would recognize and diagnose; they don't see the coughing themselves and think the patients are exaggerating; they assume it's been immunized out of the population; and they've never seen a case before so don't really know what to look for. The coughing fits are pretty awful; there's no breathing for at least a minute and there's a lot of fruitless inspiring while family looks on helplessly and the patient recognizes they haven't breathed for a while and gets really scared that they'll pass out before they breathe again! (Although, I've read that this varies greatly and some cases get no apnea, whooping or vomiting--just the long coughing jags that hang on for weeks.)
So...if it's been five years since your last tetanus shot, go get one that includes pertussis. If you have a cough that persists past two weeks and is followed by apnea or forceful inspiration or vomiting, get to a doctor and insist on pertussis testing--a PCR test and a nasal culture. As crummy as it is for the average healthy adolescent or adult, it is far worse for infants and those with immunity issues--there can be dire consequences or even death.
The immunity conferred by vaccinations begins to wane after five years, some say that's because we are no longer routinely exposed to it, thus allowing our immune systems to bolster resistance, so after ten years the vaccinations need replenishing in the form of a booster. Kids generally finish their Pertussis vaccination series when they are five years old. My son is not yet fifteen and my daughter is 16--people their age and older are the new face of the disease because of their diminished immunity and they spread it to the kids too young to have been fully immunized.
My son is still coughing/whooping/vomiting, although days pass between episodes. My daughter is just ramping up. Wish us luck and hope those they've exposed manage to dodge the bullet.
Good night.
Starting March 27, my son came down with a sore throat followed by symptoms of a common cold. Days later, on March 31, we left for Spring Break in Aruba. My son was mildly ill the entire trip, not wanting to do much of anything, but not disabled either. That was stressful because it's hard to let your kid sit in a hotel room for a week+ when you've gone through the trouble to travel great distances for wonderful weather and new experiences in a foreign land. But sit he did, for the most part. On one of the flights home he had a big coughing fit and threw up--NOT into the airsick bag and NOT because of airsickness. He repeated that performance a couple times on Easter Sunday and went to school feeling crummy on the following Monday--he'd missed two days before break and couldn't afford to miss more. I took him to the doctor's after school that Monday where he was diagnosed with a sinus infection and given a prescription for augmentin. He continued to go to school and mentioned sometime late in the week that he couldn't breathe for a minute or so after coughing and wondered if he might have asthma. "No, honey, you can't just 'catch' asthma," I said and pretty much forgot about it. On Tuesday evening (April 10th, now) I witnessed a coughing spell. It lasted about 30 seconds without a breath (that's a REALLY long time) and was followed by another minute of loud "whooping" inspirations and vomiting. Holy moley, was I ever freaked out! "Is THAT what you meant by not being able to breath???," I asked. He confirmed that it was what he meant.
Well, after consulting with friend Nurse Mary, I headed for the trusty computer and googled "coughing followed by sucking for air." Hit after hit referred to whooping cough. Off to the doctors we went first thing in the morning. I told the doctor of Henry's history (which SO fit whooping cough) and was told, "no, no, it's viral...when we see hoof prints we think horses not zebras." I acknowledged that he was probably right, but requested that he be tested for whooping cough anyway. The kindly doc humored me: chest xray, blood panel, Pertussis nasal swab: all negative. Mom still not convinced (because while waiting for results I had--thank you google--discovered they were likely to be negative now that we were three weeks into the illness).
Flash forward to Sunday night, April 29: My daughter has a big coughing fit (and had been coughing--"but really, it's just a cold," I told myself--for at least two weeks) followed by fruitless inspirations for at least a minute, finished off by vomiting. Ugh!!! Off to the doctors we go (different doc from son's). I present the doctor with my documentation of my son's illness and my suspicions. He listens intently, leaves the room for a minute or two during which we can hear him outside telling his nurse he's going to prescribe zithromycin for my daughter, my husband and myself. He comes back in and tells me he is "highly suspicious" of whooping cough and is going to treat us all and test my daughter.
This morning I received the call: the test is positive for pertussis. Call the school, call my son's doctor, call the mom of the kids she babysits for, call the mom of the kid who carpools with us, stands next to her in choir and performed closely with her last weekend, talk with the county health department, family, school some more, health department some more, friends...whew! I'm drained.
Whooping cough is not what you might think in these days of immunization. Both kids had been fully and appropriately immunized. Symptoms are fairly mild in that they are infrequent--my kids only coughed 5-7 times a day at peak (actually, my daughter's just now peaking, so who knows), whereas in the the pre-immunization days (from whence the textbook descriptions come) people had 50+ bouts a day. Between coughing fits they are fine--clear lungs, no fever, feel just fine. Doctors don't diagnose it because they think of it as an illness of extreme coughing that surely they would recognize and diagnose; they don't see the coughing themselves and think the patients are exaggerating; they assume it's been immunized out of the population; and they've never seen a case before so don't really know what to look for. The coughing fits are pretty awful; there's no breathing for at least a minute and there's a lot of fruitless inspiring while family looks on helplessly and the patient recognizes they haven't breathed for a while and gets really scared that they'll pass out before they breathe again! (Although, I've read that this varies greatly and some cases get no apnea, whooping or vomiting--just the long coughing jags that hang on for weeks.)
So...if it's been five years since your last tetanus shot, go get one that includes pertussis. If you have a cough that persists past two weeks and is followed by apnea or forceful inspiration or vomiting, get to a doctor and insist on pertussis testing--a PCR test and a nasal culture. As crummy as it is for the average healthy adolescent or adult, it is far worse for infants and those with immunity issues--there can be dire consequences or even death.
The immunity conferred by vaccinations begins to wane after five years, some say that's because we are no longer routinely exposed to it, thus allowing our immune systems to bolster resistance, so after ten years the vaccinations need replenishing in the form of a booster. Kids generally finish their Pertussis vaccination series when they are five years old. My son is not yet fifteen and my daughter is 16--people their age and older are the new face of the disease because of their diminished immunity and they spread it to the kids too young to have been fully immunized.
My son is still coughing/whooping/vomiting, although days pass between episodes. My daughter is just ramping up. Wish us luck and hope those they've exposed manage to dodge the bullet.
Good night.
