My Child Only Coughs With Exercise. Should He/She Be On Regular Asthma Medicine?
Dr. David Hagaman answers the question: 'If A Child Coughs Only With Exercise?'
— -- Question: My child only coughs with exercise. Should he/she be on regular asthma medicine?
Answer: Coughing is actually one of the main things we see. We look at all the symptoms that would lead us to worry about exercise-induced asthma. And coughing after exercise or during exercise is one of the big ones that we look for.
And so the real question with exercise-induced asthma is: is this only asthma with exercise, what we would call exercise-induced bronchoconstriction? And if it's only that, then we can get away with pre-treating those folks with albuterol before exercise.
On the other hand, if it turns out that that patient does have regular asthma that has other triggers and is there on a persistent basis, those are the patients that need to be on controller medicines for the asthma and need the full treatment for asthma.
Next: What Is Asthma And What Are Some Of The Common Symptoms?