When should I take my child to the doctor?
Hoarseness in children is harmless in most cases and usually disappears by itself. However, if your child’s hoarseness persists for more than a week without a cold or cough, you should consult a pediatrician to be on the safe side. The doctor can examine the throat and determine what is causing the hoarseness. Even if, in addition to the hoarseness, there is severe pain, high fever or shortness of breath, a doctor should be consulted immediately.
Therapy
Normally, a banal hoarseness in children disappears by itself after a few days. If your child is suffering from an infection and therefore from hoarseness, offer your child plenty to drink. For example, herbal tea with honey, chamomile or fennel tea to flush the throat free of the pathogens.
Caution: Do not give peppermint tea to children under three years of age. The essential oil of peppermint can cause a life-threatening larynx cramp in small children! Avoid dry rooms.
Cool humid air is good for your child with hoarseness. If it is an acute (pseudo) croup attack, you can hold your child in front of an open refrigerator and the symptoms will improve with the supply of cold, moist air.In such cases, try to keep calm yourself, because your nervousness will be projected onto your child. If you are unsure about the severity of your child’s hoarseness, do not hesitate to consult a doctor.
If the hoarseness is due to an overload of the vocal cords, it is best to spare the voice. Loud speech and singing should be avoided. In exceptional cases, an operation of the vocal chords or vocal exercise treatment by a speech therapist may be necessary.
In case of a bacterial infection leading to hoarseness, antibiotics must be taken. Antibiotic drugs are ineffective for diseases caused by viruses (this is the case for most diseases). If a bacterial trigger is suspected, the doctor can take a smear of the pharyngeal mucosa, carry out laboratory tests and prescribe an appropriate antibiotic.
Diseases that lead to hoarseness and need to be treated with antibiotics include purulent tonsillitis, laryngitis or pneumonia. It is important that parents administer the antibiotic for as long as the doctor has prescribed it. If the duration of administration is not adhered to, resistance to antibiotics can easily develop, which means that the drug is no longer effective if infections with the same pathogen occur again.
In general, a doctor will carefully consider whether to prescribe antibiotic treatment for a child because of the possible side effects and the risk of developing resistance. However, for certain diseases, antibiotics must be administered to ensure effective therapy and a complication-free healing of the infection. The advantages of antibiotics are that they act quickly and in most cases very efficiently against the pathogen.
Within a few days after taking the first tablet, the children feel better. For small children, the drugs are also available in drop or juice form. Homeopathy is widely used in paediatrics because of its remedies, which often have few side effects.
Thus, different remedies for hoarseness can be found, which are selected according to certain criteria. Choose a homeopathic remedy that fits the overall situation of your child. In addition to hoarseness, you should pay attention to additional symptoms and situations that are associated with an improvement or worsening.
The homeopathic remedy is usually prescribed in the form of so-called globules, small sugar-like globules. If the throat is scratchy, the voice is rough and husky and swallowing is difficult, it is advisable to take three times three globules a day for infants and three times five globules a day for school children and adolescents. For infants and toddlers, the globules can be dissolved in water or tea and infused with a plastic spoon.
Older children can simply let the globules melt in their mouths. A frequently used remedy in lay homeopathy for hoarseness is the toe root (Arum triphyllum). It is used for a rough voice and burning sore throat as well as for a cold and a very stressed voice.
The lime-sulfur liver (Hepar sulfuris) helps with dry barking cough, stinging sore throat with hoarseness and yellowish deposits. If hoarseness is caused by an underactive thyroid, potassium iodate or potassium bromate is suitable. A suitable homeopathic remedy can be found for almost every individual manifestation of hoarseness in your child.
Let your pediatrician or pharmacist advise you in this regard. However, if your child suffers from shortness of breath or if the tonsils are purulent, you should consult a doctor! Your child needs a lot of rest to cure his or her hoarseness.
Physical exertion, such as sports, should be avoided. Give your child enough to drink. Either simple herbal teas, such as chamomile or fennel, but also milk with honey is often drunk by children suffering from hoarseness.
To do this, simply add two teaspoons of honey to about 150 ml of warm milk. Attention: Honey is not suitable for infants and babies under one year of age! Furthermore, you can offer your child lozenges with Emser salt or Icelandic moss, but also sage sweets, which are more often accepted by children.
You should also make sure that your child’s voice is protected, but not by whispering!When whispering, the vocal chords have to use much more force to produce the desired sounds, which in turn only makes the hoarseness worse. Warmth is good for the child’s throat. Make sure your child wears a scarf to warm his or her neck when hoarse.
From your medicine cabinet you can buy potato wraps, which have a warming and pain-relieving effect. For this you need six unpeeled soft boiled hot potatoes, a cotton cloth, a kitchen towel and kitchen paper. Spread out the cotton cloth and the inner cloth over it.
Crush the hot potatoes between two layers of kitchen paper and wrap the inner cloth around them. Check the temperature before you put the wraps on the chest or back of your child. Wrap the cotton cloth around the upper body and cover the child.
The wrap should be applied as long as the temperature is felt to be comfortable, but for a maximum of one hour. Allow your child to rest for 15 minutes afterwards. In general, irritants such as spices and smoke should be avoided in the case of hoarseness.
Never smoke in the presence of your child and always ventilate rooms where smoking has occurred before your child is present. This could further irritate the throat and make the hoarseness worse. Also ensure that the air in the room is damp by hanging damp cloths in the room or placing a bowl of water on the heater. If you are unsure about your child’s hoarseness, do not hesitate to consult a doctor.
