The cough turned out to be more serious then we though.
It was some virus in the chest or around there. Medical terms were throw around, but basically it we had a videoscope done through the nose, to see whether the throat, voice box, nose was inflamed. it wasn’t fortunately.
Unfortunately though, the doctor believed that it was the chest was inflamed. It would need a dose of steriods inhalenet and other stuff to clear it. The cough that kept coming up was because there was acid reflux irritating the throat. Thus it was often advise to sleep with elevated pillows. This would prevent the acid from flowing downwards and this is why the cough usually get worst at night.
We didn’t go ahead with this course or action, but rather went to see our “usual” doctor to solve it. We got Nexium, a very expensive pill, it was about 60 dollar for a 5 day course. We were taken aback when we were about to make payment at the pharmacy. Nexium helped to solve acid reflux, by preventing the production of acid. Another medicine was given to protect the bowel as well to line it, to make it less gastric.
What pisses me off on the whole incident though was that, after visiting almost like the hospital for 8 times? None of them gave such a diagnose of a gastric juice reflux. We were just usually given cough syrup. We had tried tons of them and none worked. And it took just another doctor to pinpoint the problem. This is a problem of misdiagnose. This reminded me of my slipdisc incident. Many years ago, I had a problem with my legs, there was always a pulling sensation intermittently. Seen the specialist for like almost 5 times, before he asked me to do a MRI, which i did ask before whether i should go and do a MRI. It then turned out to be a slip disc. On searching the internet one of the slip disc symptons was exactly what i was feeling, but the doctor did’nt even considered that as a possibility. Coming back again, reminds me of my colleague which had a mis-diagnose as well. He was mis-diagnosed for some virus in his blood, but actually it just turned out to be pneumonia. He had tons of test done on him, some of which even include extracting splinal fluid. Ouch! So in summary, do read up on the internet more to check for other possible conditions, but also you much check with a proper doctor as well.
So now my baby is feeling better but there is still some cough on and off. Hopefully this will just disappear with time. On a funny note, there was a old folk remedy for cough that seems to be true in Singapore, my baby’s colleague did ask her to do the following too : Rub vicks on the sole of the feet and wear socks after that during sleep. This was done for all the children that he had. I thought this was only an Internet thing. We were both very skeptical about it previously but had tried nevertheless.
