Help please! What do you think this cough is? (m)

[Cindy in C-ville]

My 10 yo son has been coughing for several days. At times he coughs a lot. It is deep in his chest and behind his sternum. There isn't any "whoop," although at times there's a little bit of a "bark." And when he has more of a "bark" he says that it hurts behind his sternum. No fever, no runny nose, no lethargy - just this cough. Thoughts? TIA!

~Cindy

[Remudamom]

Go to the doctor. We've all been going through this and it hangs on for about a month. Our college kid came home with it and shared. We thought he was over it, but he started up again and went to the doc. Beginnings of pneumonia. He's on antibiotics.

I don't think any of us ran a fever either, but it sure did hurt after coughing a while. Lack of other symptoms like your son. I think our ds didn't get over it because he's in extremely cold weather in the NW. Dd and I were just miserable for weeks, and just about the time we were going to get checked it started getting better. Not worth it.

[ELaurie]

ds 8 also had a deep, noisy cough before the holidays. I was shocked when the doctor said it was pneumonia and said he needed antibiotics.

Since then we've all had coughs that hang around for what seems like forever. In retrospect, I think dh had pneumonia too. He never when to thee doc, but he was sick for weeks.

(( ))

[Volty]

If it were a cold, he'd have more symptoms. It's probably just a bacterial infection that can easily be treated. I know people usually like to just tough it out when symptoms seem minor, especially if money is a problem. And usually things clear up by themselves when your immune system figres it out.

This though seems a bit more serious. The bug doesn't seem to want to let up without some outside intervention. If youwait, you may be waiting fora long time.

I think if you take him to a doctor, it'll be something minor. Your son will take medicine for 7-10 days, the symptoms will be gone in three or our days, and you won't need a refill.

Probably/hopefully.