dressagemom
11-02-09, 09:44 AM
I think my children may have had pertussis. I haven't had them tested, of course, but after reading the description of the disease and its progression, it seems very similar to their symptoms, esp. DD1.
She started coughing when we were on vacation, so I didn't have access to everything I would normally have used to treat illness. I packed my "pharmacy", but only just the essentials. The coughing started out fairly mild, then progressed to a barking cough for a few days, and then became quite severe. It was pretty mild at first, and that phase lasted maybe a week; she actually seemed to be getting better. The barking cough was what made me suspect pertussis. After that, she started hacking up mucous and coughing like crazy; she would cough so hard she caused herself to vomit. We are going on 2 1/2 months for the whole thing, so maybe we are just about finished.
All 4 of my children have experienced this to one degree or another, with DD1 being the worst. I looked it up online while we were away (we were gone for 6 weeks), but it didn't seem to fit with the symptoms listed on the websites I checked. Looking back, it seems a much better fit. It wouldn't have really mattered, though, because where I was, there is very little available in the way of alternative treatments. I was pretty much limited to what I had brought with me.
Oh well. I guess I will be more enlightened next time. Hopefully we will be a bit wiser and treat it better. Thanks for the info MT!
She started coughing when we were on vacation, so I didn't have access to everything I would normally have used to treat illness. I packed my "pharmacy", but only just the essentials. The coughing started out fairly mild, then progressed to a barking cough for a few days, and then became quite severe. It was pretty mild at first, and that phase lasted maybe a week; she actually seemed to be getting better. The barking cough was what made me suspect pertussis. After that, she started hacking up mucous and coughing like crazy; she would cough so hard she caused herself to vomit. We are going on 2 1/2 months for the whole thing, so maybe we are just about finished.
All 4 of my children have experienced this to one degree or another, with DD1 being the worst. I looked it up online while we were away (we were gone for 6 weeks), but it didn't seem to fit with the symptoms listed on the websites I checked. Looking back, it seems a much better fit. It wouldn't have really mattered, though, because where I was, there is very little available in the way of alternative treatments. I was pretty much limited to what I had brought with me.
Oh well. I guess I will be more enlightened next time. Hopefully we will be a bit wiser and treat it better. Thanks for the info MT!