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If you have severe asthma and your only treatment is a puffer when you get breathless and some pills, sack your doctor! Many doctors are still treating their patients the way they did twenty years ago. You may be missing out on treatments that could transform your life, simply because your doctor is poorly informed about the latest asthma treatments.

My severe asthma caused me to miss half my schooling and has put me in hospital more than once – yet I haven’t had an asthma attack (touch wood!) in ten years. My life was transformed by the use of the new preventative asthma puffers.s Now, the only time I wheeze is if I catch a bad cold or flu, Continue Reading

Working in the ER as an emergency RN I have been exposed to patients with asthma on a regular basis. I have a good understanding of this disease and the potential for life threatening attacks. In order to understand what asthma is, you need to have a basic understanding of breathing. When we breath, air is brought into the nose where it is warmed, filtered and humidified and then air passes to the throat. From the throat air makes its way into the trachea (also known as the windpipe). The trachea then divides into two large tubes known as the right and left bronchus. These two tubes then divide into many smaller tubes and actually branch into many small airways known as bronchioles.

In patients with asthma the air passages become swollen and inflammed and become narrowed. As Continue Reading

My husband has had asthma since the age of 13. He took over-the-counter medicines for several years before he began taking prescription medicine. Now he’s 53 years old, and still depends on some prescription medicines, but not as many as in years past. He’s found that many of these prescription medicines have side-effects that are almost as bad as not being able to breathe. Such as losing his voice, and feeling a sense of tightening in his throat as if he was being choked, weight gain, etc. Many of these medicines contain steroids which is a well known negative factor. You may ask, if you have asthma, what are you supposed to do? Aren’t the medicines, like Advair, Albuterol, Salmeterol (Serevent), etc., the only options to provide a better quality of life? Yes, and Continue Reading

Asthma is an inflammatory condition where your bronchiales constrict causing breathing difficulties. Your bronchioles become inflamed for a variety of physical, emotional and environmental reasons. It is not contagious so, you cannot catch it from another person.

But what is the real cause asthma? Why do some people develop asthma and why is asthma more common in the western world?

Inheriting Asthma

However, you can inherit the asthma tendency from your parents, although people with asthma should not worry about their future children on this score.

Studies show that children whose parents smoke are twice as likely to develop asthma as children of non-smoking parents. Also, children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy tend to be born with smaller Continue Reading

I had asthma since I was 3 years-old, therefore I have become an expert on the subject by sheer experience. Asthma is a very complex and delicate condition to manage. It’s very much like walking on eggshells all the time. You never know when the next attack will come forth, and it can become quite depressing for sufferers and carers alike.

I still remember the look of helplessness in my mother’s eyes and her anguish at my unability to draw breath. I had a few bad years, with endless sleepless nights, many visits to the emergency rooms and a couple of let’s say very very close call. She was at the end of her rope. I believe that she could have done with some counselling and benefited from advicees on how to help me control my asthma. People too often Continue Reading