My child’s cough has always been bad. Sometimes you need to pay attention to this problem.

Respiratory tract infection is the most common disease in children, and cough is the most common symptom of respiratory tract infection. Therefore, many children have coughed, sometimes over and over again, and they will cough again soon after. Sometimes some people even cough for a long time without stopping. good. Among them, most children just have ordinary recurrent respiratory infections, which are generally not related. As they grow older and their immune systems gradually mature, the frequency of illness and coughing will naturally become less and less. But there are also some special cases of chronic cough that require us to be more vigilant, such as cough variant asthma. Cough variant asthma (CVA for short) is a type of asthma, but its symptoms are quite special. As the name suggests, CVA only coughs but does not wheeze. Therefore, when a child\’s cough has not been good, many people may not immediately think of asthma. Even non-specialists may sometimes overlook it. But in fact, CVA is actually one of the common causes of chronic cough in children. Fortunately, typical CVA actually has relatively obvious characteristics. If we can understand it in advance, we may not ignore it so easily when we encounter it. I have made some summaries and would like to share them: 1. Chronic cough: the cough lasts for more than 4 weeks; 2. Mainly dry cough: unless there is co-infection, it is rarely a wet cough with phlegm; 3. The pattern is obvious: coughs often have phlegm. There is a relatively obvious regularity, or there are clear triggers, such as early morning, exercise, emotional excitement, climate factors (cold air, high temperature and humid air, etc.), exposure to second-hand smoke or certain inhaled allergens, coughs are more likely to occur, Or the cough worsens; 4. Simple cough: apart from cough, there are often no other symptoms; 5. Normal physical examination: the doctor\’s physical examination often finds no abnormalities or anything; 6. Treatment medication: use inhaled hormones, bronchodilators, etc. Drug treatment generally results in significant improvement, but other drugs such as antibiotics are ineffective; 7. High-risk factors: CVA often occurs in children with atopic constitution, and these children often also have other atopic diseases, such as eczema , food allergy, allergic rhinitis, etc.; 8. Exclude others: One of the prerequisites for diagnosing CVA is to exclude chronic cough caused by other diseases, that is, no other reasons can be found to explain it. At this time, special attention should be paid to CVA. possible. Bottom line: If a child has atopic disease before and now develops a chronic cough (lasting >4 weeks), especially a regular dry cough, but has no other symptoms and no other clear reason can be found. , then you should pay special attention to the possibility of CVA at this time. Of course, to determine whether CVA can really be diagnosed, it is still necessary to have a pediatric respiratory specialist conduct an evaluation. Some children may need diagnostic treatment for further confirmation, and some children need to check their lung function first.