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Monitoring You Child's Asthma Symptoms
When your child's asthma is well-controlled, he /she will have few (if any) asthma symptoms or attacks and, in short, should be able to do anything a child without asthma can do. In addition, your child should:
- Rarely (if ever) have a nighttime cough
- Rarely (if ever) wake up at night because of coughing or shortness of breath
- Be able to exercise about as long as other children, with little, if any, cough, wheezing, chest tightness, or trouble breathing
- Handle colds as well as other children
If your child's asthma is worsening, he or she may experience:
- Cough at night
- Waking up at night because of coughing or chest tightness
- Increased cough, wheezing, and/or trouble breathing with exercise, or reduced ability to exercise because of asthma
- Cough or wheeze at rest (reading, watching TV, etc. – not while doing homework!)
If your child is having a severe asthma attack, he or she may experience:
- Severe shortness of breath, rapid or shallow breathing, labored breathing, and/or sucking in the skin between the ribs or at the base of the neck
- Blue lips
- Severe cough or wheezing that returns within a few hours after treatment with the child's reliever medication
- Inability to speak in full sentence
- Sleepiness
- Fainting
Asthma Treatment Plans
Asthma treatment plans are written instructions for administration of asthma medications, provided to you by your child's physician. The asthma treatment plan will guide you when to give which medication, based on your child's symptoms.
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