Baby has runny nose - a symptom of many diseases, parents should not be subjective

Dr. Nguyen Hy Quang, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Hanoi E Hospital, said that when children have earaches and high fevers, parents are often worried and take them to the doctor early. However, in some cases, children do not have a fever or have a mild fever for a day, then have a stuffy nose and runny nose, and are often not examined early, and are only given cough syrup and expectorants.

Not taking your child to see a doctor to assess the condition of their nose and throat after 5-7 days of taking cough syrup poses many potential risks to the child. The child may lose the opportunity to completely cure the nose, and may need a long-term adenoidectomy.

Treatment of the nose in the early stage and the late stage after 2 weeks or more are very different. In the early stage, when the nasal discharge is clear mucus, or less cloudy mucus, the child does not need to use antibiotics, can overcome with cough syrups, nasal drops.

When there is pus, in the early stages there is little pus, treatment is quicker, only need to use low dose antibiotics for a short time.

If not examined and treated early, children may have severe complications of purulent rhinitis requiring adenoidectomy.

In the late stage, the nose has a lot of pus, making treatment difficult and arduous. The longer the sinusitis lasts, the more bacteria accumulate and grow deeper into the sinuses, the nasal mucosa (sinus) becomes inflamed, swollen, and degenerates, hindering fluid drainage.

Bacteria multiply and have the opportunity to aggregate together to form a Biofilm layer, which prevents antibiotics from killing bacteria, causing children to have prolonged or recurrent rhinitis.

“When children have a runny nose or cough, early medical examination will help reduce the risk of creating Biofilm in the adenoids, reducing the risk of having to have adenoidectomy surgery later due to frequent inflammation ,” said Dr. Quang.

Infectious rhinitis in children that lasts longer than 3 months is called chronic condition.

When children have chronic bacterial rhinitis, even with regular nasal suction and irrigation, their quality of life is still affected. Children often feel uncomfortable because their nose is always in a state of poor ventilation (even if it is only occasionally stuffy).

However, if there are episodes of secondary inflammation, in addition to leading to otitis media, acute purulent tonsillitis, bronchopneumonia, there are also the following rare acute complications:

Blepharitis, phlegmon, and orbital abscess are the most common complications.
Ethmoid sinusitis extending to the inner corner of the eye socket (causing pus to leak out onto the skin) is also quite common in children.
Meningitis, brain abscess.
Cavernous sinus phlebitis, sepsis.

Doctor Quang shared that pus is often thicker and gets stuck in the nasal passages (middle, upper, lower), making it difficult for parents to suck it out, so they should never be subjective even if their child only has clear nasal discharge.

Parents should take their children to see a doctor when nasal discharge is accompanied by the following symptoms:

- Your child has a slight fever (although it may only be a temporary fever during the day, usually in the afternoon and evening). This is a sign that the nose is starting to become inflamed, or there is another infection in the middle ear or tonsils.

- Nasal discharge becomes thicker and turns milky white.

- Cough with phlegm with deep cough, thick phlegm.

- Easier to gag and vomit, due to thicker pus flowing down the throat causing irritation.

- Runny nose lasts for 5 days or more.

Nguyen Ngoan

Source