Finally Sleeping Again

Wow, has the past few weeks been crazy. N got a cold back in October... early October. It seemed like a simple cold - congestion, sniffles, cough. After about 2 weeks, we went to the doctor to see why it was hanging around so long and to be sure she didn't have an ear infection. Oddly, there was no sign of any bacterial infections, so the doctor prescribed some liquid loratadine (generic Claritin, ie allergy med). He said either she'd gotten back-to-back viral infections or it was actually allergies, but to come back in a week if her symptoms didn't improve.

Needless to say, we were back in a week. The doctor proclaimed N to be allergy free because the meds didn't help. He said she just needed more time to work through whatever viruses she was dealing with. They took a urine sample just in case (and THANK GOODNESS N IS POTTY TRAINED so that was possible), although that didn't turn up anything. The doctor said to come back in another two weeks if nothing improved, and then they would do blood work. Blood work on my baby.

So, when we were T-2 days to having to draw blood, and N was still not improving, I went for a second opinion. To be honest, she was getting even worse.

Diagnosis: bronchial spasms, due in part to allergies. Treatment: continued use of loratadine, in addition to using a humidifier at night, cough syrup at bedtime, and a once daily dose of liquid albuterol each morning. Albuterol - that's the same medication that's in my inhaler.

N may not always have asthma, but she's suffering from it right now. But since she's finally been diagnosed properly, we're getting to sleep for more than 2 hour stretches at a time. It was heartbreaking the way she would cough in the middle of the night, gasping and crying. It is such a huge relief for her to sleep straight through until 4 or 5 in the morning without coughing now. Eventually, I'm sure she'll be sleeping through the night again.

And now that I am somewhat more rested as well, I should work on that back-log of blog posts I was bragging about.

Have you or your kids ever suffered from illness that wasn't diagnosed right away? Was it relief or added anxiety that accompanied your diagnosis? And if you've gone a prolonged period of time with serious sleep deprivation, how did you manage to recover?