Kid's respiratory infections take longer to cure

Dear Dr. Donya,

Thank you very much for your kind answer to my letter concerning "discrepancies in hygiene standards among parents". I appreciated very much your understanding of my frustration in facing this problem, specially looking at some practical manifestations in my daughter's health.

I agree with you on the importance of not blaming or shaming my wife, specially in front of the child. Concerning your final, kind question about my child illness, I would like to briefly answer as follows: My daughter who is two years old is a very active and apparently healthy child. I do not think she has a particular problem, except she is quite sensitive in the nose and throat area (I am too).

When she was younger, I observed cold symptoms (starting with a running nose and cough) almost every time she played in the swimming pool of the complex where we lived, in Jakarta. Also now, she often has a sore throat and running nose, which after a certain period is followed by a fever. This means antibiotics, sometimes also for three weeks, and other different medicines.

Recently, 10 days after we got back from holidays, she had the same symptoms. After about one week we brought her to the doctor several times, because the cough developed into fever, diarrhea, vomiting everything (including water) and stomach ache.

The latter, according to the doctor, was due to the excessive intake of antibiotics and consequent destruction of bacterial flora. The whole cycle lasted about one month, and my daughter lost more than two kilos (she is now about 15 kg.)

Another observation that could help you is that when she sleeps, her breathing is often quite difficult and noisy, specially if she is not well.

I am sad to see her sick and obliged to take a lot of medicines, very often, by force. Sorry, Doctor, for my long letter. I would appreciate very much your kind opinion on what could be the cause of these frequent bouts of illness and how to prevent them.

Thank you very much for your help through e-mail or The Jakarta Post.

Yours sincerely. Reader

Dear Reader,

The reasons could be many, such as hygiene, immune function including her vaccinations, which I am sure follow the schedule. You also said that she has frequent infections but has never needed to be hospitalized, which is also good.

It is quite normal for young children, when they are sick because of a respiratory tract infection to take a long time to recover. Talking about secretions, if it obstructs the airway which is already small it will make the airway even smaller and that is the reason why they cough and cough for some time before they get better.

Her difficult breathing during the night is also from secretions, which comes from her periods of illness.

Her weight of 15 kilograms is fine for her age. She has a blocked nose while sleeping, it sounds like she has it when she is not ill too. Is that right? If this is the case you probably have to look for obstruction such as recurrent respiratory infection that causes adenoid hypertrophy and could also cause her to snore or make sounds while sleeping.

Does she go to nursery school? Does she play with other sick kids? This can be a factor too. The possibility of an allergy also needs to be brought up.

How to prevent illness in your daughter? Because so many different viruses can cause colds, no effective vaccine has been developed. You can teach your child to slow the spread of cold viruses by teaching her the importance of washing her hands.

Discourage her from sharing food, drinks, napkins and towels with others and teach her to cover her nose and mouth with a tissue when she sneezes and coughs and to discard the used tissues right away and to wash her hands afterward. --Dr. Donya