How to Treat Post-Nasal Drip in Children

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Dr. David Hill and today we're going to be talking about how to treat post-nasal drip in children. So you may notice that a child doesn't necessarily blow his/her nose a whole lot and may not have snot dripping down their face, but they may spend a lot of time sort of bringing up phlegm from the back of their throat. Going ehhhhhhh, or hhhrrrr or any of those other lovely sounds that children make. That was a good one. So that's a sign that there's some sort of nasal secretion that are being managed. And the first question for you is, what is the source of the nasal secretions? There are lots of reasons a child's nose may run. It could be as simple as the weather is cold, or it could be allergies, it could be the common cold or it could even be a bacterial sinus infection. Telling the different between these three things is a little difficult but you can get some clues and knowing which thing you're treating really helps you to treat it. Looking for colds, children will get an awful lot of colds. For the average toddler, between eight and ten colds a year is relatively common. Those children are going to be sick probably seven to days on average but then they should get better. They should have a fever for the first few days of their cold and then the fever should go away. Fever if they come back is just a bacterial infection and may need to be treated by a doctor. Treating the runny nose from cold, there's not a lot to do. In infants and younger children, you can suck out the nasal secretions periodically with nasal suction bulb. You can also relieve congestion and stuffiness by using saline nose drops and dribbling a couple of drops in the nose, and then sucking those out to clear the airway especially for feeding time and sleeping. A vaporizer might also help. In children over age six, there's a medication called Ipratropium that you can squirt up in the nose. It's available in two different concentrations and is available in a generic form. And that serves to sort of turn off the faucet within the nose. So children six and up think about that Ipratropium spray. To relieve congestion for a couple of days but not more than three days, you can use a nasal decongestants, spray like Phenylephrine. Now if a child has had symptoms more than seven days of a runny nose, you're starting to think more about a bacterial sinusitis especially if there's a headache or persistent cough, or a fever that comes back. Antibiotics are going to be the best thing to treat that at least in children. If there's a lot of nose itching or an eye itching, you start to think about the allergies especially if symptoms go on for weeks or months at a time. Allergies can be treated with antihistamines. Many of which are over-the-counter like Zyrtec, Claritin and the generic versions of those. However the most potent allergy medicine is a steroid sprays that you actually put in the nose. These have to be prescribed by a doctor. So if you suspect allergies and they're not responding quickly to over-the-counter medicines, schedule an appointment to talk with your child's doctor about what might be causing the post nasal drip. Discussing treating children with post nasal drip, I am Dr. David Hill."