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Showing posts from February, 2017

New medication for kids with uncontrolled asthma

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These are a few of our "empties"......no, not THOSE kind of empties!  No beer bottles here! These are some of the controller inhalers/discs we have used over the years. Controller medication is what you take EVERY day for your asthma to keep the swelling down in your lungs. It's important that you take it every day - whether you feel sick or not. There are four in my family with asthma (myself and my 3 kiddos - 2 of whom are now grown.) All of us have different struggles with trying to control our asthma over the years. So, we have tried almost every asthma medication that is on the market. In fact, when we saw a TV commercial for an asthma medicine, I asked daughter Kitty, "Hey - you had that one once, didn't you?" She didn't even look up from her homework, but said dryly "Yep, if they make it, I've tried it." I always like to keep my eye open for anything new, so I follow the Allergy & Asthma Network Facebook

Asthma moms! Are you taking care of yourself?

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With 25 years of parenting under my belt, you would think that I would have learned by now how to take care of myself AND my kids, but nope. This photo is me in the hospital, having some tests run. Apparently years of chronic stress have taken a toll on my poor little body. As mom to 3 kids with asthma, we have had a LOT of stress over the years. My two youngest kids were hospitalized 12 times for asthma (2 were ICU.) When my kids were little, it seemed like they were ALWAYS sick! If they would come home from school with a runny nose, I would start to panic. For us, it would just be a matter of time before all the other cold symptoms would start (sneezing, coughing and wheezing).  We knew where to find all the after hours pediatrician offices! But wait, there's more! When you have asthma, a cold or the flu can easily turn into pneumonia. And for us, that would mean a 3 day hospital stay. But we also had two other kids at home, so how do we juggl

Do I disagree with the experts? Well.....yes!

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I feel that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to treating asthma. You can see from the picture above a small sample of what we have around the house for allergies and asthma. My 3 kids and I all take different medication and different doses of allergy and asthma medicine. Son #1 swears by Allegra, but daughter Kitty likes Zyrtec . I can't take either one because it makes me feel WAY too tired. So I use an over the counter nose spray . The same is true for our asthma medicine, we all have different inhalers that we feel work best for us. But with asthma medicines - what works best? Inhalers or nebulizers? There are researchers who have shown that an asthma inhaler works just as well as a nebulizer for treating asthma. Do I think they are right?  Nope. I get that they are researchers and they have their professional opinions and the science to back it up..... But, I know my body, and I know what works best FOR ME. There are times when I