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Home › Articles › Illnesses, Diseases & Disorders › RSV

RSV

Battling the Wintertime Bug

By Rachel Dickinson

Pages:  1  2  3  

One Mom's Story
The 4-month-old son of Amy Rea in Eden Prairie, Minn., had a bad cold with a very tight, unproductive cough. Then she noticed he seemed to be having trouble catching his breath. A trip to the pediatrician and a rapid test confirmed that he had RSV.

"Our pediatrician told us it was a banner year for RSV," says Rea. That was in January of 1996. During the first half of 1996, Rea's son was at the pediatrician's office 40 times because of RSV symptoms. He was treated with the pediatric version of Prednisone and when the baby's breathing became labored or wheezy, the Reas had to administer breathing treatments at home with a nebulizer.

Like many infants who develop serious RSV symptoms, Rea's son was then diagnosed with asthma. Now, at age 5, he is very susceptible to bronchitis. According to Dr. Rao, the long-term problems often associated with RSV, including wheezing or reactive airway problems, may not be because of RSV. "We watch these kids developing asthma after a bout of RSV as infants," says Rao. "But when we examine the family history we may find that there's already an underlying tendency toward asthma."

For parents who go through a serious case of RSV with their infants, it's a very stressful time – and one they're not likely to forget. "Those RSV days are pretty clear in my mind," says Rea. "I think the worst day was when my daycare provider called and said 'I can't put my finger on it. He's not coughing or wheezing, there's no fever, but something is really, really wrong.' I raced over, took him to the pediatrician and it turned out he was barely breathing at all."

Thankfully, Rea's son today is a happy and healthy little boy.


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Re: RSV by Shannon on 12/01/2008 01:14AM

My daughter has RSV now and you can tell how uncomfortable it is for her. She is miserable.

Re: RSV by anonymous on 11/14/2008 09:03AM

My son had RSV when he was 2 weeks old, but we had no way of telling, he was just "not right" as I put it to the hospital, so they checked his oxygen rate with the machine, as they do any time a baby is brought in. They tried four machines because they thought it was broken, the number should have been at 99 percent, my son was at 24 percent. They said if that is the real number, he should be blue, and technically almost dead. It was a big surprise. They admitted him right away, and two hours later, told me it was RSV. He was in the hospital for three weeks, then they sent us home. My son was on oxygen tanks for another six weeks after that. He wasn't wheezing, or coughing, no runny nose, he was just "not right." I thank the heavens for mother's instinct, as RSV is very hard to detect sometimes, and in my case, I hadn't even heard of it until after my son was already in the hospital.

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