Interesting but I think asthma has been overdiagnosed, frankly. It seemed to be, for awhile, the disease du jour in California. I know that during that period addressed in the article, my family doctor diagnosed asthma in me and my two daughters and prescribed medication (inhalers). However, we didn't have asthma, never have yet I'm sure we are part of the statistics of the asthma "epidemic".
Me too.....was having some breathing problems, esp. in winter.....so they said I had asthma....gave me an inhaler...which I hardly used, and then through away....I believe it was part of Menopause....yeah, I really mean that.....your hormones do weird things to you....got it all fixed now.
Now, as for CHILDhood asthma.....what about all the indoor carpet? Tightly built homes? Less time spent outside in fresh air? And, too much milk!
I think it is because of the way kids grow up nowdays. In short children today are brought up in a "bubble" and their immune systems are not allowed to develop.
They do not play outside, they also live in houses where the windows are never opened. They spend the vast majority of their early years never exposed to their natural environment and thus never build immunities to pollens and other things in the air. Hell, I grew up in a house with both parents who were heavy smokers, so did the rest of the kids on my block. None of us ever developed Asthma or any other respritory problems. We also spent every waking moment we had when not in school playing outside.
The freaked out, overzealous parents of today have to dunk their children and everything they might come in contact with in Lysol and Purell Hand Sanitizer, thus they do not develop immunities to run of the mill bacteria/viruses that have been around forever. When we were kids we did things like *GASP* drink out of the hose, share a bottle of pop without pouring it into individual glasses and our parents version of "dunking us in Lysol" was making us take a bath before going to bed because we were muddy and dirty from playing outside all day.
When I was a child I had just about every childhood illness around-Mumps, Measles, Chicken Pox, Whooping Cough, etc.. Sure it was no fun and I still have some Chicken Pox scars but I also have a highly developed immune system.
Perhaps. But my daughter nearly died because her asthma was treated too routinely. She suffered an attack while driving and thought that she had time to get home. When she neared our town, she realized she would have to stop for help. By the time the paramedics arrived she was unconscious and the paramedics were down to the last step in their process before she responded. They were almost convinced that she would die before they could transport.
My research following this incident revealed that we had not properly educated my daughter to recognize and deal with the severity of her asthmatic symptoms. She was not able to recognize the onset of an attack early, and she did not appreciate the potential severity of an attack and the consequences of not handling it properly.
A key tool for educating her was an inspirometer. This device readily indicated that I am able to draw air into my lungs at twice the rate of my wife or my daughter, due to my larger lungs and airways.
After some experimenting with the inspirometer, my daughter was able to understand that her ability to breathe was reduced during an attack to a small fraction of the air she could normally breathe.
Also, she was able to realize that her need for air could be dramatically reduced by eliminating physical activity. An amount of air which is sufficient for comfortable resting would be entirely insufficient for an activity like driving a car.
Finally, she was able to develop a sense of when an attack was coming on, before the symptoms were at their worst. This helped her to anticipate the need for cessation of activity, medication, and access to help.
I believe that it is borderline negligence to diagnose a patient with asthma without training and educating them with an inspirometer.