Feel free to ignore if you don't know what this is or whatever...

Background: my older son (13) is super healthy, super athletic, big strong kid (5'9'' 175). Plays football and lacrosse.

Anyway, about 5-6 years ago he would have these incredible coughing fits that came from nowhere. Deep cough that sounds like a donkey (sounds a little different than a croup cough). Absolutely constant...that goes on day after day for 1-2 weeks. Causes him to miss his practices, school, family activities, etc. He's not sick otherwise. Happens 5-6 times per year in the Fall and Spring. So he's basically out of commission for 1-2 weeks 5-6 times per year.

At first doctors assumed it was asthma or croup. So we treated it with inhalers and steroids. For YEARS we treated it this way. It didn't help AT ALL. It didn't shorten the coughing cycles at all or make them less frequent.

So we got him into an allergist and they ran some big allergy panel. No allergies beyond your standard pollen allergies showed up. But he takes prescription and OTC allergy pills everyday.

Eventually when it didn't get better and he missed much of his football season two years because he just couldn't quit coughing, we got him into an ENT. They were a bit alarmed we'd been treating him for asthma and croup as aggressively as he had--even though that's what his PCP told us to do. They did scans of his throat and diagnosed him with tracheamalacia. With tracheamalacia, basically the walls of his windpipe are weak and wobbly and not firm. And triggered by anything from a small virus that wouldn't be noticeable otherwise, wind, cold weather, over-exertion or a half dozen other things...his windpipe starts wobbling and causing that cough.

Anyway, a few weeks ago he missed 5 days of school and practice because of it and now he's on another cycle of coughing. Missing school (and testing) for the 3rd day this week. He's beyond frustrated. We're frustrated for him and, admittedly, with the constant sound of a braying donkey in our house. But nothing touches this cough. He has some inhalers that sort of help, but not really. Humidifiers are supposed to help but don't seem to be working. The next step is either a) deal with it and hope you grow out of it b) have a pretty invasive and quasi-risky surgery.

I'm literally asking if anyone on here has treated this before with any success in kids or teens (I guess it's totally different with babies and is indicative of larger lung issues, which isn't the case with him and his age).

Anyway, I've got a super healthy (otherwise), strong, active, awesome teenager on my hands that is getting very very discouraged about missing lacrosse practice, school, church, activities, etc.