My 5 year old daughters epiglottis is visible and has been since she was a baby, it hasn t caused too many problems until the past few nights where she has been literally choking and gagging on it when she s been in bed to the point where she can t breathe. I know this is due to being lay down, we have tried to prop her up as much as we can but 10 mins later she s scooched down the bed in her sleep and is back laying flat choking again. Any help appreciated
Hello and Welcome to Ask A Doctor service.  I have reviewed your query and here is my advice.  Has your daughter ever had choking and gagging episodes before?  Sometimes when the healthcare worker asks a healthy child to open his/her mouth the child will open the mouth so widely that the epiglottis is seen. These patients are not sick.  If she is up-to-date with her routine childhood immunizations, then she is protected against her epiglottis being infected because the most common bacterial cause of epiglottis is covered by the vaccines that she received when younger.  Infection of the epiglottis is life-threatening.  The child refuses to lie down, Chat Doctor.  A possible cause of cough when laying down and no cough when upright is gastroesophageal reflux.  In which stomach contents come back up the esophagus into the throat causing the child to cough.  Hope I have answered your query. Let me know if I can assist you further.  Arnold EDD, MD, FLAP