Breathing Treatments

I dreaded having to do this but it ended up not being too big of a deal for us and it seemed to help with the RSV wheezing a lot.

We had to buy a nebulizer machine which was about $190 (it will apparently be covered by insurance). You get a prescription of Albuterol which comes in individual doses of medicine in little bottles that you squeeze into the nebulizer. The medicine is blown out in a mist/fog basically through a mask.

A full treatment takes about 10 minutes. If the mist starts to sputter, shake the mouth piece and it will get going again until it is really out of medicine. If the baby doesn’t like the mask, you can take the mask off and just point the little spout at their face. This is what we did most of the time. The baby got the best treatments when he was sleeping because we could use the mask (which holds the mist around their mouth and nose more) and he wasn’t wiggling around. I always had a couple toys where we sat for treatments so that he was playing with those rather than the mask or tubing.

Some people say the albuterol makes their child kind of crazy and moody. We did not have that experience with this medicine but we have had it with other steroids.

You will also be receiving the treatment as you can help but breathe that stuff in as the baby is getting it so enjoy your albuterol high. Feel those pipes opening up!