Mucus

[dreamboat]

I have read your articles on getting up the mucus out of a baby which i have read over and over because i my little man is only 8months and he is having that odd little dry cough here and there which is just how my 3yr old started out.
Basically her cough has developed into full on whooping cough choking and going red in the face at night,coughing her guts up about 10-15 times through the night and i was wondering if the advice you have given for getting up mucus in a baby is the same for her. She is a bit big to try to hold around the waist between my legs. And i did try to hold her tilted downwards and smacked at her back but she got the shits with me and wouldnt co-operate.
Does she have to bring up mucus in order to get better?
How do i even know if there is mucus down there it is such a dry cough it just sounds like an itchy cough rather than a mucusy one.
I am currently giving her around 1-1/2 teaspoons of vit c so far and she is gassing a fair bit. I was going to up the dose but remembered you had written to lower the dose if they have gas.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

First, how much vitamin C is your 3-year old daughter getting per day? What are her No 2's like? if you feel the SA isn't working for her, I'm wondering if it's worth trying liposomal vitamin C???

Re the baby... then hold her around the waist, against your body, with her legs straddled on your upper thigh, and wear anything that comes up on your knee :D

Getting the mucus up is important in pertussis because if mucus pools in the bottom of the lungs, then bacteria can rapidly multiply and cause secondary bacterial infection.

Having said that, there are some babies will bring up the mucus from the lungs, but then promptly swallow it, which means the stomach acid will deal to the bacteria, but I'm not sure that swallowing is a good idea, since that's less space for food. So keep her tilt slightly forward. You will have to lean forward a bit, because the idea is to provide your body as neutral support from behind; your hands as a neutral support in the front, so that she can control the amount of support she needs to cough properly. When she cough, resist the urge to "help" her by pushing inwards. All she needs is something for her stomach muscles to push against.

You can feel this for yourself, because if you cough with soft stomach muscles, all that happens is your stomach muscles push outwards. If you put your hands against them like a still wall you can feel your stomach muscles have more grunt.

So this is what you want to achieve for a baby, front and back.

it really annoyed me to see the "coughing baby" add on TV with the poor babies stomach coughing outwards all the time, achieving nothing.. and then the words to the effect that that was unnecessary... if you vaccinated.

Lies.

And it was unnecessary, because just simple support, can make a baby's stomach muscles more effective.

Whooping cough is like labour as in one contraction at a time... one day at a time. You can only deal with what happens. Planning is good, but I found my planning didn't work particularly well for me, as both kids had it so differently.

:hug:

[dreamboat]

My 3 year old is having around 1 - 2 teaspoons a day and i was referring to her when i meant how do i get her to get the mucus up as she doesnt seem to be able to cough it up herself. She just coughs and coughs then moves her mouth around as though she has swallowed it again.

My baby has not got any type of full on cough just a little hick here and there of a day but my 3 year old is the one who is sick.
I just cant get her to spit it out and i was worrying that it is all pooling down there. I tried tipping her up but as i said she just gets cranky with me being a stuborn 3 yr old and wont let me.:eyeroll:

My doc is pretty cool and i took her to see her today and just asked her what she thought if she thought she sounded like she had pertussis and she said no,she said the same as what you say that the antibiotics do nothing and are for stopping infection being spread only but do not lesson the cough whatsoever and she doesnt believe she does have whooping cough she thinks she has a sensitive airway and nose. So i dont know..... we are going with that for now,she thinks she is having an allergic reaction to something that causing the coughing as this has been going on since Jan with my 3 yr old.
Due to her cousins recently having whooping cough though i guess i just thought that she had it and this is the 100 day cough which would explain the coughing since Jan but now i dont know.
I am confused :o

[dreamboat]

God i sound like a rambling twit dont i:p

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Well, if it's not the 100 day cough, it will carry on a lot longer, and then you will know.

if your three year old is swallowing it, that's not so bad. She has a much larger stomach than a baby, and though it's not ideal, it's not as crucial as with a baby.

If she's not having enough vitamin C to get to the gas stage, then top it up, and otherwise, if she's coping well enough, leave her be. If she's not got green sputum, then there is no secondary infection.

if it's a sensitive airway, you will soon know. the other option is to eliminate wheat and dairy for a while, and see if that helps. If it does, reintroduce it back after a few weeks, and see if the mucus builds up again.

sometimes, taking wheat and milk products out of the diet during an infection is enough to help clear it up, if it's building up mucus...

[dreamboat]

Thanks Hilary i will actually take out all wheat etc from her diet. I had already taken out gluten as she reacts to it big time so i have always tried to give her limited amounts of it.
But i will take out all that mucus building stuff like milky things and cheese.
Easter hasnt helped of course :rolleyes:but in saying that she has barely had any eggs.
Thanks again i appreciate your help.:)

[dreamboat]

Just wondering why you mentioned trying the liposomal vitamin C?
Is it just a stronger version of the sodium ascorbate and is it readily available at most health food stores?

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Because you said she had a gas build up on low doses, so perhaps her gut is too sensitive for her to get a solid enough concentration in the cell mass itself.

I don't know where you get it in the USA: http://www.livonlabs.com/

[dreamboat]

I am in Australia actually not the USA,yeh she does have a fair bit of gas with it. She is still whooping and choking on her coughs through the night it has been nearly a month now but i will admit it is lessening a bit.
My son now is whooping and being 9 months old is having a tough time with it so i will just keep up the vit c and giving him support around the waist when he coughs and hope he gets any mucus up he may have. It is hard watching a child of that age though,really stresses me in the night when he seems so bad. :(

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Then maybe you do need to consider liposomal vitamin C, or going up in an aeroplane...

[dreamboat]

I dont think i could go up in airplane i am afraid but i will try the health food store and see if i can get it otherwise i may very well might have to try to make a plane trip.;) I dont know how but will try

[dreamboat]

I just need to talk and get it off my chest really. I am stressing tonight and i know i need to chill and compose myself because i am at the stressed point of taking my son to hospital.
He has just finished having a coughing fit where he couldnt breath for what seemed like forever and was whooping extrememly badly so i am increasing his vit c to every hour at the moment and will see if that helps him over night. I am doing about a fingernail amount mixed with breastmilk.

My sister was putting garlic on her daughters feet under socks before bed and her cough was gone within 2 weeks so i have started that to. I am willing to try anything at this point because watching your 9month old going through this is so hard its killing me i just cry at night for him.
I am so tired i havent slept much in months because my daughter had me up and down with her coughing and now she's improved to about 1 or 2 coughs a night but my son is in the thick of it right now.

God i hope i am doing this right and he pulls through this quick.:(

[kiah]

Oh dreamboat,
this must be so difficult for you :(
Having a sick child is the worst thing to go through. I can only imagine how stressed and tired you are.
I'm sure Hilary would hv the best advice regarding the vitamin C.
I'm so glad that your daughter has improved. I'm really going to pray that he (and you) both sleep well tonight and get some needed rest and comfort.
Kiah

I googled 'garlic feet whooping cough' and found this link http://www.home-remedies-for-you.com/remedy/Whooping-Cough.html
Not sure how effective any of these are, but just trying to help how ever I can.

and this http://www.herbal-treatments.com.au/herbs_whooping_cough.html

[dreamboat]

Thanks Kiah, i have read and read and re-read every single piece of information on pertusis Hillary has posted on here and i am taking all of her advice but i am still scared and not 100% confident in myself especially him being so young. I had to leave him all day today with my husband so he wasnt getting as much vit c as usual which may have contributed to him being worst tonight.
He has brought up a bit of mucus last night and a big blob this morning so i was feeling confident that i was going well and he would fight this and get it up but tonight he just seems to be choking on it so badly and cant get his breath.
I am not so much asking for more advice as i think i have been given plenty by Hilary and others so thank you all so much but i more so am just needing to talk about it i guess.
My husband was raised in a family who vaccinate and take plenty of medicated drugs for all simple things that could easily be treated with nutrician and homeopathics so i have had a hard enought ime convincing him this is the best thing for our baby and not on antibiotics. He flipped out over my daughters coughing fits and yelled for me to get her to the docs so i dont want to show that i am anything but confident in what i am doing.
It is just so bloody hard being a parent sometimes.

[kiah]

It really is the hardest job in the world. Feel free to vent here!
It could be the reduction in Vit C today that has made it seem so much worse at night. Plus it's always worse at night, with the combination of lack of sleep, stress and worry it must be tiring!
Do you have a humidifier? I put ours on every time with a bit of eucalyptus and tea tree oil the girls get a cough and it seems to help breath a little easier. Plus Olive Leaf Extract and of course Vit C.
You're in my thoughts and I hope you feel a little better getting this offyour chest :)

[cartersmom]

Dreamboat,

Just chiming in to say how sorry I am you are having to go through this! It must be so hard and Im sure lack of sleep makes it 100x worse for you. Be sure to take care of yourself as well. Take your vit c and whatever else you need to to stay healthy. As for your baby, just keep on with the vit c!! Are you giving it to bowel tolerance?? Im sure you are if you are following Hilary's advice. He will be ok!! Keep the faith. Can you consult a homeopath or ND? Perhaps they have something that could help at this acute stage as well.

[dreamboat]

Well last night was not as bad as his earlier attack, he did cough at least every half hour and as morning neared it was close to every 15 min but he was not choking as bad, the coughs were shorter in length.
:coffee:Now to get through the day without suddenly dropping on the floor in a lack of sleep coma.
I do not have much help from the husband lately as he has his own business and is off driving night and day so it is me me,myself and i AND the whooping cough:mad:which i will not let it beat me.

Hi Cartersmom, i am trying to stay as healthy as i can but havent really been hungry at dinner time so i have been lacking there. I was giving both of them the vitc till they both had a fair bit of wind and then i cut back a tad and now neither of them seem to have gas and they arent gastric so i am thinking perhaps now he is a lot worst this this week i might up his dosage again. I was giving to him practically every hour last night but he wouldnt take it most of the time i had to forse him to let me drop it in his mouth which i hated doing to him the poor bugger.
I had not consulted a homeaopath yet as i remember reading Hillary said it was fairly useless in babies with whooping cough but i might give it a go anyway it cant hurt hey!

Thanks for links Kiah i will check out today when i get a moment.

[kiah]

Hey Dreamboat,
Just checking in to see how you are doing? I hope you are coping well. My sister thinks she has whooping cough and is waiting on the test results - one of her friends has it at the moment and has been really struggling with it - temperatures, vomitting etc.
Anyway, hope your little boy is ok and your daughter is still on the road to recovery :)
Kiah

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

I missed this...

Work out where you are in the cycle. Do you think you are near the end?

If so, then just carry on and make sure your husband does as he's told... You can try homeopathics, but I've found that the standard remedies don't work. If you can find a competent homeopath, you might have success. One year, we had success using sulphur first (after finding that remedies worked, four a few hours and then tailed off, so on reading found that 1 dose of sulphur could sometimes clear that... ) and then mephitus and moshus were the two that were right that year. Four years later, required a different work-up, but with hardly any success.

However, if you are at the early stage and this upset, then the answer is to go up in a airplane, and within four days, things should be sorted to a much more manageable level.

[dreamboat]

I missed this...

Work out where you are in the cycle. Do you think you are near the end?

If so, then just carry on and make sure your husband does as he's told... You can try homeopathics, but I've found that the standard remedies don't work. If you can find a competent homeopath, you might have success. One year, we had success using sulphur first (after finding that remedies worked, four a few hours and then tailed off, so on reading found that 1 dose of sulphur could sometimes clear that... ) and then mephitus and moshus were the two that were right that year. Four years later, required a different work-up, but with hardly any success.

However, if you are at the early stage and this upset, then the answer is to go up in a airplane, and within four days, things should be sorted to a much more manageable level.

Well he coughed lightly for about 2weeks and then the full blown whooping cough with mucus has been going on for about a week. I have him on 2tsp of Vit c now and his stools tonight were very runny but he still is not passing wind so i was unsure if i needed to up his dose.
He got up a bit of mucus today in short bursts through out the day but mostly i have had to scoop it out of his mouth as it is quite gluggy and it is coming out of his nose aswell the poor bugger which make sit hard for him to breath when he is having an attack.
I have him elevated on a high pillow but he ends up in bed elevated on my chest all night.

I rang the peadiatrician just to make my husband happy and i said to him if he did lets say have whooping cough then what would you do for him and he said "well he needs to go on the antibiotics because he can spread the infection and still be a carrier even after he is no longer coughing".
So i said okay but are those antibiotics going to help HIM in any way,are they going to lesson the cough and mucus he is experiencing and after a short silent break he answers "NO".
So there u go i said to my husband.

He is understanding now so i am just continuing what i am doing but how long do they generally cough up the mucus for and does the mucus keep building or as he is coughing it up then he is getting rid of it?

He does not always spit up any mucus either sometimes he will cough on and off all night and bring up nothing but you can hear it in the back of his throat and nose. I am supporting him around the stomach to which is amazing how it reduces the sound of the whoop instantly and helps him to manage his coughs. I just cannot believe doctors do not tell people to do that for babies. I even did it for my daughter who is 3 when she was coughing badly a couple of weeks back and it helped her too.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

First, the doctor is wrong. They "say" that 7 days antibiotics is all that's needed and then the kids can go back to school.

Second, it's almost impossible to get a positive PCR test after three weeks of coughing, so where the doc gets the idea that they are infections long after the coughing stops, beats me.

if people could still be carriers, then the tests would always come back positive late in the infection, but they don't. Ever.

The mucus keeps on producing at the normal levels. the reason it appears to be building is because the hairs which normally keep sweeping it up in small quantities regularly, have been chopped off, so instead of the mucus constantly circulating, that circular process is "stopped" so the mucus pools. The coughing, is trying to do the job which the hairs did before. So you just have to bear with it.

You can try using NAC http://www.diagnose-me.com/treat/T292370.html . i've not tried it, because it wasn't around when my kids had it.

vitamin C in large enough quantities usually keeps it reasonably thin.

the whoop is more an indication of inability to cough well, so they keep coughing until they run out of air, and then the whoop. the stomach support allows them to maximise the strength of the stomach muscles, so they can move it much quicker. Therefore, they never get to the point where they've run out of air, and have to whoop.

Try to get mucus out as often as you can, but remember that touching the tongue will usually trigger an attack.

[dreamboat]

Last night went well he did cough a bit but he wasnt really choking and his coughs didnt go on forever. The biggest problem he had all night was he has caught his sisters snotty nose and so it was blocked and he could barely breath all night. It has thinned down today and is simply running now so he can breath again and has only coughed twice since being up and it is now 11am so so far he seems to be on the mend but i wont get too excited.
He did cough up some mucus or i should say vomited up the mucus and it was quite thin this morning when he woke so id say 2 tsps is what he needed and it is finally doing its job.

Christ what a stressfull bloody thing to go through:eyeroll:

But i hate to think how i would have got my son through this if it wasnt for this site so thank you so much;)

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

My biggest problem through whooping cough was lack of sleep and a broken toe. Once I got their doses right, the kids managed themselves relatively well.

[dreamboat]

My biggest problem through whooping cough was lack of sleep and a broken toe. Once I got their doses right, the kids managed themselves relatively well.

Oh how bad is the pain of a broken toe :eek: i have broken 4 now with my last only being about 2 months ago.
The doctor told me it was one of the most painful bones in the body to break.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

At that time I had a habit which our younger son does also, of... when sitting on a chair, tucking one foot underneath me. I never thought about it. Just did it.

It was the foot of the broken toe. I got the hang of walking on a broken toe, but to the children's amusement, I never got the hang of sitting on it.