Question
The baby has a persistent cough and no medicine seems to work. What should I do?
Answer
Both cough variant asthma and typical asthma in children involve airway allergic inflammation and airway hyperreactivity, with similar causes and mechanisms of onset, differing only in severity or stage of progression. The quality and quantity of environmental allergens and non-allergic stimuli that trigger airway inflammation are not uniform, and due to individual differences in genetic constitution, different individuals may produce incomplete responses to different environmental stimuli. Since various pathological changes in different individuals are at different degrees, different individuals or the same individual may exhibit different clinical manifestations at different times or under different circumstances. If a child experiences significant airway inflammation, it can stimulate bronchial smooth muscle spasm, resulting in wheezing.