Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

Does anyone here have children who were diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease?
My 8 month old daughter spent the day in the ER yesterday b/c of wheezing, coughing, an ear ifection, and a fever. The doctor diagnosed her with RAD. He said it's too soon to diagnose asthma, but she has classic symptoms and is pretty certain that is what she has.
Does anyone here have children diagnosed with RAD and not end up having asthma?
I am so upset...

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

Sending healthy wishes to your son!
My son was diagnosed the same. He is 26 months old. I'm hoping he will outgrow it! He was on the neb most of the winter.

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

We never head anything about RAD, but at 9 months we were asking to see a specialist because DS did nothing but wheeze all the time and was constantly congested. He finally wound up in the hospital at 9 months for labored breathing and a touch of pnuemonia with a bad ear infection. We finally got to see a pulmonologist. He said he was pretty sure it was asmtha (even though our ped said the same thing, it's really to early to tell). He put DS on Pulmicort twice a day (nebulizer steroid) and for the last 3 months he's been doing soooooo much better now. We're going back at the end of April for him to check him out again and he'll probably take him off of it for the summer and we might go back on for the winter, so that every little winter trigger won't set him off again.

Did the doctor put her on anything? Did you see a specialist?

Out of all this, the good news is, kids tend to grow out of it. It may take some time and they may have to wait till their like 6, but more often than not, especially if there's no family history, they'll grow out if it.

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

Posted by krashnburn

Out of all this, the good news is, kids tend to grow out of it. It may take some time and they may have to wait till their like 6, but more often than not, especially if there's no family history, they'll grow out if it.

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

Thanks for all your replies.

Well, unfortunately, asthma runs on MY side of the family - only, no one ever got it this early on, which scares me. I was praying that this would be the ONE THING she would NOT inherit from me, but it's not looking that way. I only get asthma if I am around cats. Other than that, I never get it! My husband doesn't have it at all. So hopefully, she is one of those children that only gets it when she catches a cold. Brilliant, since she is in DAY CARE. I just feel really really scared. My brother is 32 and STILL has asthma and almost died on at least 5 occasions b/c the steroids stopped working. Prednisone is so BAD in the long term and I am just so worried what this is going to end up like for her.....

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

Yes my son was hospitalized with that in 2006. Soon after he was released I got a call from my insurance asking me about my son's Asthma. I had no idea. My ped said RAD can lead to asthma but he was too young to be diagnosed.

He was on the nebulizer quite a bit, but thank God I have not had to use it once this year. I'm pretty sure he has outgrown it.

Can I ask was your DD a C-section?

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

Posted by JRG71

Posted by krashnburn

Out of all this, the good news is, kids tend to grow out of it. It may take some time and they may have to wait till their like 6, but more often than not, especially if there's no family history, they'll grow out if it.

That's not necessarily true. You may go through periods of latency, but you never grow out of asthma - At least according to our pediatric pulminologist.
My DD see's a pulminologist for her cough variant asthma. You can't diagnose asthma until after age 4 (under age 4 it's basically a clincal diagnosis) - You can find out for sure earlier than that but your DC will have to be sedated to do the test. We opted not to sedate - to treat the cough with Singulair (not for very long after the FDA investigation) and nebulizer treatments with albuterol when it gets bad.


's - I was so upset when the pulminologist said that our DD most likely had asthma.

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

Ryan has been diagnosed with "Early asthma", RAD, bronchiolitis a few times, etc. They are optimistic he'll grow out of it, but for now it's winters with pulmicort 2x/day and albuterol as needed. He was not C-section, this all started after he got RSV at 4 months old

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

OMG we are going through this now..Since Jan 29th Gavin has been wheezing, he also had an ear infection for that whole time until last week when he got tubes. WE are now seeing a pulminologist (Dr. Weiss). THey are not calling it asthma but Intermitant wheezing. He is on albuteral 2x a day and Flomax 2x a day. He will be 9 months on the 12th. The first time he had wheezing was in Nov when he had bronocolotis and then again this past jan. The pulminologist said he probably would grow out of it since there is no history on either side of the family. We also had him allergy tested and he's not allergic to anything. He was on pulmicort but that did nothing. He is trying to get his hypospadia surgery but its been cancelled 3x because of the wheezing. Hopefully this will go away with the ear infections. They are thinking the two were related.

He was a C-section baby.

Re: Reactive Airway Disease - Asthma?

old post that I am bumping for more replies.

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just spent 3 days in the hospital with Josh. came home with a spacer and albuteral...going to his dr in the AM for more of a treatment plan.

we left without any diagnoses...just the words that its too early to diagnose asthma.

I am at a loss.

The dr said that it usually requires child to be hospitalized 3 times to put the label asthmatic on chart...