Health Care

By: Ricky Hussey

For asthma control to be ideal, it is important to recognize changes in symptoms. Your careful observations will help determine whether your child's asthma is becoming better or worse. Symptoms vary from child to child and may include coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, rapid breathing, difficulty catching his breath, chest pain, or increased mucus in the chest. These symptoms may appear alone or in combination with one another.

You can monitor symptoms in two basic ways: by recognizing and tracking symptoms as they appear or by measuring breathing with a peak flow meter. The National Institutes of Health recognizes both methods as accurate. The choice depends on the child, family, and physician or nurse practitioner to determine what is best.

Symptom Recognition

This simply means identifying your child's asthma symptoms and noticing when and how they change. Is he coughing at night? Complaining of chest tightness? Breathing rapidly? Showing decreased tolerance for physical activity? Does he cough anytime he plays or laughs? Is he waking up at night with wheezing? If your child is a toddler, does he start coughing or wheezing after a temper tantrum? Or does your teenager develop shortness of breath when laughing?

You are probably the one who will recognize most symptoms. But if your child is school-age, he might be better able to recognize his own symptoms, like coughing at school or while playing sports. You are more likely to observe symptoms in a toddler, but you might also hear coughing at night in an adolescent.

Many families like to keep a daily diary to track symptoms and medicine use. The diary can be a notebook where a child's symptoms are written down in a table where the symptoms are listed and checked off as they occur. However you design a daily diary, keep it simple. It's helpful to note the date and time of day that symptoms appear in order to notice patterns. Take the diary to your child's medical appointments because your doctor or nurse practitioner will find it useful.

With young children, hints often appear to tip you off that symptoms may be starting. A very young child will not be able to tell you that his chest is tight or he's having shortness of breath. You'll probably notice that your child gets a little cranky or tired, or has a tickle in his throat, several hours or even a day before more noticeable asthma symptoms appear. Learn to recognize your child's early warning signs. If he's old enough to talk, encourage him to tell you if he's not feeling right, even if he can't explain exactly what the problem is.

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