My son was diagnosed with Tracheomalacia on 1/25/10. I have mixed reactions… ‘are you kidding??!!’ is the first reaction. I mean, how many complications does a kid need?
But relief is my second reaction. It seems to be a mild case and at least I know now that he probably does not have asthma, a disease that seems like it would be much harder to manage. Plus, the medicine that he is on for JORRP is propranalol, which can cause ashtma like sypmtoms or can exaggerate asthma. And I don’t want to take him off of the propranalol because it really seems to be working. In addition, the abuterol that one takes for asthma makes Tracheomalacia worse, so at least now I can use the right medicine (atrovent) and perhaps manage his breathing better.
What is tracheomalacia?
From wikipedia: Tracheomalacia (from trachea and the Greek μαλαχια, softening) is a condition characterized by flaccidity of the tracheal support cartilage which leads to tracheal collapse especially when increased airflow is demanded.
The trachea normally dilates slightly during inspiration and narrows slightly during expiration. These processes are exaggerated in tracheomalacia, leading to airway collapse on expiration. The usual symptom of tracheomalacia is expiratory stridor or laryngeal crow.
There also seems to be quite a bit of information out there about tracheomalacia given that it’s rare. A PubMed search of tracheomalacia yields 641 results as compared to JORRP which yields 7 results.
For recent news about tracheomalacia click here.
