Isaac's Croup Saga

Isaac had a 10 month ordeal where he was sick pretty much continuously. It started August 2021 when we took 15 month old Isaac to the ER in McLean with a bad case of croup- I wrote about it here. The steroid treatment knocked the attack down to the level of a normal cold. One that WOULD NOT GO AWAY. We were sucking his boogers and running a humidifier in his room for months. He had another croup flare up the week of Thanksgiving, but we were able to control it by giving him lots of steamy showers and home remedies. It would ebb and flow, but never completely went away. He was coughing pretty bad during Christmas and our spring trips. 

He developed croup for a third time when Rachel and Savannah were at our house in April. He had been fine other than a stuffy nose throughout the day, but woke up struggling to breathe. It didn't get better when I jumped in the shower with him, so I took him to the ER. 

 

They gave him a steroid treatment that cleared it right up, but they made him stay for observation until around midnight. My attempts to turn off the lights and have a snuggle nap on the hospital bed failed, so I got to have a late night hospital room party with my favorite 2 year old. 

They mentioned that we could get an inhaler that would be able to stop croup attacks. We got one perscribed and were instructed to give him two puffs every morning and night and to double that if he was having croup symptoms. The only problem was that he HATED the inhaler. It was the kind that comes with a spacer, so you put the facemask over his mouth and nose then have him breathe in the medicine. It took two of us- one to pin his arms and legs in a bear hug and one to put the thing on his mouth and puff it. Then we would suck his nose with the nose frieda. It was a daily torture session for the little fella. We gave him a piece of chocolate afterwards and eventually he stopped fighting it, but man was that rough for a while.

We did have to use the double dose to stop a croup attack a few weeks later, and it worked! We didn't have too much faith in the 2 puffs every day though - it didn't seem to do much against the baseline lingering cough. We gave up on it, and eventually it cleared up around the end of May! He has been cough free for three months now. It's a whole new Isaac. 

Our best guess is that Isaac had some underlying sinus/lung infection. It put him more at risk for catching every cold out there, and when he caught them it hit him harder than it did the rest of us. I'm thinking that his immune system was a bit stunted from being born during our Covid quarentine phase, but who knows. We are just glad that he's finally doing better!