Chocolate cough syrup?

If you've been following, my 3 1/2 year old son, who was diagnosed with asthma after being hospitalized a couple of times for terrible wheezing.  He now regularly sees a pulmonologist who has him on a whole coterie of meds–Flovent, Zyrtec, Albuterol on an as-needed basis and, since the last visit, Singulair as well. 

In spite of all the meds, every time he comes down with a cold (have you ever seen a kid in nursery school go for more than a week or two without a runny nose?!), he ends up with a terrible, persistent, cough that last for weeks at a time.  Thankfully, so far this season we've avoided wheezing or any hospitalization…but I would love to be able to offer him something besides (or in addition to) Albuterol to quiet his cough…I have definite moments during which I am jealous of parents who had their kids before all cold and cough medicines were taken off the table!

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The Fun of Toddler Asthma Maintenance…our second trip to the ER

Last week my son got a cold.  For a parent of a child with asthma, a cold is no small thing…especially during a summer time-off from preventative meds (It is a common practice to give an asthmatic child’s body a break from his or her daily meds during the Summer months, when there are less respiratory viruses floating around)  Here’s the bullet-points of our last week or so:

on 7/29 or 7/30 he developed a high fever, with no other symptoms whatsoever. This fever lasted through the end of that week.

On about 8/5 He started sneezing and coughing a bit…as per the pulmonologist’s previous orders, I immediately began to give him his Albuterol inhaler, his relief medication, but did not yet start him on Flovent, his preventative medication.

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