Empowering Parents through Asthma Education

We just rescued two ginger kittens and I know people say you cannot have pets if you have allergies and asthma . Well , we've all had allergy shots and I'm never going to be a grandma , so the two little kittens are going to be my grandbabies and we love them and we just keep a really clean house , stay up on the allergy medicines and all that .

But yeah , I'm a sucker for kittens , definitely .

So 25 years ago I had my little article from Parents Magazine and I took that to the pediatrician because that's what we used back then , because the internet wasn't really a big thing back then , a lot of people didn't have computers . I said to my doctor I'm really concerned . This child has asthma and he shows all the symptoms here .

Something is off with this kid . He said oh no , it's a virus . About two weeks later I took him back to the doctor . He was sick again .

He looked terrible , his skin was pale , he had dark circles under his eyes , he was really lethargic and that mom instinct , like something's wrong with my child , took him to the pediatrician and all of a sudden , instead of saying , oh honey , it's just a virus , but you know , I'm a doctor , the room swarms with people and I've got people putting an oxygen monitor

on his finger . I'm setting up an albuterol breathing treatment . The doctor doesn't come in a lot . All sorts of other people were there and I thought what's going on ? He said , well , he's having a hard time breathing . I'm like , yeah , that's why I brought him in . I knew something was wrong .

They said we need you to drive around to the other side of the building and we're going to admit him to the hospital . I was eight months pregnant . I had a really horrible pregnancy , got some heart issues . I was supposed to be home on strict bed rest . That meant getting up to go to the bathroom , getting up to shower . That was it .

Couldn't find anybody to take me down to the pediatrician with him . Now I've got to drive around to the hospital . I call my husband and say he works an hour away . Something's going on . They're admitting our son to the hospital and he's in a panic . He borrows a car . I get to the hospital and they're like honey , do you need a wheelchair ?

I'm like I've got to take him up to Peds . I get up to Peds and the respiratory therapist there and I'm like what is going on here ? He said , oh , we're admitting him for asthma . I said uh-uh , no , I just talked to the pediatrician and he said he does not have asthma . And he said oh , he has asthma , right , that's why we are admitting him .

So deer in the headlights look . Didn't know anything about asthma , didn't know terminology , didn't know how the disease worked , didn't know how it worked on different people . Just , absolutely in a panic , I am going into preterm labor at this point .

It was a really hard situation and , bless his heart , the respiratory therapist went over to his computer , printed off 30 pages worth of information from the Internet , came and flopped it down on my son's bedside table , turned on his heel and then just called over shoulder , call me if you get a diagnosis . You should get the information .

This is back before smartphones . It wasn't like I could just pull up my phone and sit on the corner of his bed and Google what is asthma , what are the signs and symptoms ? None of that was available . It was a really , really rocky road . I dove into the world of asthma . I started reading those 30 pages worth of medical articles .

I was circling , I was highlighting Respiratory therapists would come in . I said what does this mean ? What's this work ? Then we were introduced to an asthma specialist . The thing that can be really hard is that when my son was discharged the first time , the pediatrician said oh , he doesn't need to be on all those inhalers . You know there's steroids in them .

That kind of stuff is good for the body . You need to stop all those , which I did what the doctor told me . My son was back in the hospital four weeks later with pneumonia again . So this time we decided to go with the asthma specialist and go with someone who knew what it was . This is his specialty . That can be a little bit hard sometimes .

When my son was first diagnosed , I had some hopeful family members that were into homeopathic medicine . They said you know what ? We've got these drops . Just put them under his tongue and not fix anything . Starts having problems . Just use that . This is an older family member . She had six kids . I trusted her . My son ended up in the ICU .

I said we're done here . I'm going to listen to the specialists and make sure that I'm following all the medical professionals . I'm not going to mess with essential oils or anything else . I've got to go with what works and what the guidelines are . Through myself in the world of asthma , attending webinars , listening to anything I could read , anything I could .

Then , when I would learn things from the doctor . I'd be sharing this with friends whose kids had asthma . A friend that worked in public health said you know , you are really good at this working with families and explaining things how they could understand . You should get a degree in public health . I said what is that ?

I found a program at the local university and she said you should go back and get a degree in this and you can get paid for what you're good at and helping families . So I did . It had been 19 years since I'd been in college . My oldest son was starting college the same time I was going to college . I was terrified . I had gone to college .

We used typewriters and card catalogs and hear all these kids on their laptops whizzing around . It was terrifying . But made it through , earned my secondary bachelor's degree , had to take core classes , graduated with honors and then became certified nationally in public health and asthma .

Right , with everything , did you feel at one point you're ready to fire your pediatrician ?

And they kept trying to do that with some of my heart problems and I said this is none of your business . I'm going to go to the doctors that are board certified and specialize in this . I'm going to make sure the information I get is accurate , because that almost cost my son his life , that is a valid point .

I put off medication because I had medicine chambers in my life telling me that it's going to the first group I was in . The woman said it's going to kill me the medication because it killed her brother . Like I've had a lot of people like say , don't take that and I got joint damage because of it .

So I see a lot of people not start their medication because of the fear and I'm like , please just talk to your doctor , don't listen to random .

I mean , yes , we want to listen to random strangers on the internet for , like , nice help , like you know , like all of us , what we're doing here , but when you , when you really need medical advice , you need to go to a doctor and voice your fears and not just listen to medicine shamers tell you don't do this because it's going to wreak havoc on your body .

It's like if it were happening to you , I think you would have a different perspective , because that medicine shamer who had me like not want to take my meds and ended up happening to a family member of theirs and they were like , oh , they need medication . It's like , yeah , when it happens to someone close in your family , you'll understand .

But yeah , so I'm very passionate about this .

It's a no , you don't need those medications , but I do .

I will link to Mayo Clinic or one of the other allergy and American Lung Association or some of the national , because I want to make sure that they know that the information I'm giving is accurate , because it can be really dangerous . And why shame somebody ? You are not in their shoes and you do not know what they're going through .

And I've had so many people say I just I don't have to take medicine for the rest of my life . I'm like , why not ? I intend to live a long life and annoy my kids . They're all adults now . I want to annoy them for several more decades .

I want to live a long life and if this can help me do that , I'm going to take it , yeah , and let's be realistic .

Because when I was getting my diagnosis they had my mom thinking I had cystic fibrosis and they were holding me over beds and beating my back and chest and doing all of the stuff . All I really needed to do was get the mucus out my lungs because I had asthma and a good old nebulizer treatment would have cleared that up . But you know .

It depends really on your body . Just like all of us look different on the screen , asthma can look different for everybody . It depends on what type of phenotype and endotype of asthma you have . Some of the biggest myths are that asthma is just a childhood disease . Well , guess what ? They grow up to be adults and they still have asthma .

And asthma does not go away . And I said well , I'm a little 60 . How old do you have to be before you outgrow asthma ? And that's a really common one . That people say is that people outgrow it .

No , we just grow up and our lungs grow with us and we may have less symptoms because we're better at preventing germs I'm a germaphobe , where it could be better at preventing ways of getting sick . That's a big one . You have to say , oh , it's just anxiety , it's all in your head , you just take some deep breaths and you'll just be fighting .

No , it's actually in my lungs , but thanks for that . Another one is people with asthma shouldn't do sports . They need to just be on the chess club in school . Well , no , we want your heart strong , we want your lungs strong .

And if you look at the Olympic athletes , the most common disease among athletes Olympic athletes is asthma , if they're competing at that they're competing at that global level at the highest amount of their sport . Well , I can go for a walk around the block or I can go for a bike ride .

All my kids do sports and if you have exercise-induced asthma , sometimes your doctor will have you pre-medicate , they'll have you use your albuterol inhaler , say , 20 minutes beforehand , and so there's a lot you can do . But absolutely , sports are good .

Some people say , hey , I don't want to use my inhalers because they're addictive and I'll never be able to get off it and they're going to stop working over time . My body's going to build up a defense . Also , not true . We talk about the inhaled corticosteroids that a lot of people use to control their asthma . Think of it as an anti-inflammatory .

It's keeping that swelling down in your lungs and that's the number one thing people don't understand about asthma . Asthma , it is disease of inflammation . Your lungs swell and every time they swell they're going to build up scar tissue . People that are not treating their asthma over time can actually go on to develop COPD .

So if you imagine you're injuring the same place on your body you got that covered door that sticks out , or that part on your island , you come around the corner , you're always hitting your hip on it . Well , after a while you're going to build up scar tissue there because that's a repeated assault on the body . That's what happens with asthma .

So really preventing that from happening and keeping that swelling down in your lung , it can lower the amount of asthma attacks you're having . It can help keep you out of the hospital . That's an important one . They're not addictive . They don't stop working . Another one is people say what ? I'm not hearing any wheezing .

Oh well , you can't be having an asthma flare because you're not wheezing . We don't all wheeze . I can't wheeze to save my life , my daughter , I the room . So if I end up in the ER , which we get the California fires all the time , we get smoke from them all the time .

In my state ended back up in the ER and then they're just like you know , you're not wheezing . I couldn't even speak . So I had to have my husband say you know what . She really knows what she's talking about . She's certified in asthma . She doesn't wheeze . She never has wheeze . I have cough variant asthma , so you can't always look for that .

That's another one of those myths that oh , they're not wheezing so it's got to be something else . Those are some misconceptions about asthma . I would say I'm in the Rocky Mountains in Salt Lake City , utah , right outside all the beautiful ski resorts . It's a gorgeous place . We have really horrible air quality right now .

If they want to go out , they go to the gym , they go to the local rec center to run and do all that type of stuff . We really don't go out . We make sure that we always have the recirculating air set on the cars when we go out .

When the air quality is really bad like this , we also make sure that we're changing the air filter , the cabin filter for the car . So most people think , oh , you mean the cabin filter on the oil ? No , no , no , it isn't the air filter on the engine . There's an air filter right behind the glove box and it filters the air that comes into the car .

So that needs to be changed very frequently too if you're driving around a lot with this inversion . So sometimes they don't allow the kids to go out to recess on really bad inversion days because it can be that dangerous for them .

Little kids breathe faster , they have a faster respiratory rate , they're outside more than adults , so they can really have a lot of lung problems from this . They're outside a lot , so that's just part of where we live . We live at the bottom of a bowl and all the air pollution is trapped and we have that inversion .

If you go up above that , you go up to Park City and go up to some of the ski resorts , it's crystal clear and blue , beautiful skies , and then you come down into this smog and this gunk .

I could only help the people that had the most severe asthma or uncontrolled asthma . So we would get referrals from the hospital , from emergency rooms , from pediatricians , and we would help those people . And one thing I know , going back 25 years ago when my son was diagnosed , is you're just a deer in the headlight in the hospital when you get a diagnosis .

You don't know up from down , and so when these people are discharged and they're in their home and they're comfortable because they're in their familiar surroundings , it's easier for them to learn and to remember what you're telling them .

So these home visit programs are really important and they may hear a tenth of what the doctor told them with the pediatrician or whoever they're going to go see .

So what we would do is we would go into the home and I would also offer visits after hours because they don't want people to miss work , because when you have asthma and you're taking a lot of sick days , I don't want anybody their job to be in jeopardy because I had them meet me there for two hours at their house .

I would also offer to come after hours or , on a Saturday , go into their home and we would teach them basics . Asthma symptoms , emergency symptoms , say . Here's what normally happens during an asthma check . However , if these things start happening , this is when I need to go to the emergency room . We would talk about asthma triggers .

What are some of those things that are going to set off your asthma , and people just didn't realize how the environment , things around them , could affect their asthma . We would talk to them about different types of inhalers . So , okay , let's put a sticker on this one . This is one you're going to take every day .

I'm going to put a little sticker on the back that has a calendar , so that reminds you that you're going to take that every morning and every night , like your doctor's asked you to this one over here years .

When you're having a little bit of that little tickle in the straw , you start coughing , you can use that inhaler and have a little sticker of that of a little kid coughing , because most people really mix up their inhalers , which one they use . And then there's different types of inhaler . There's dry powder inhalers , meter dose inhalers and soft mist inhalers .

All three of those are going to be taken differently . So go through all those and I have them . Show me Now . Just show me . Pretend I'm not here . Then you're just going to use your inhaler for the day . Show me how you would normally use that .

Remember I'm over here and I would show them a video with proper inhaler technique and I'd say okay , now tell me if you notice anything different on this video or anything else you do differently . If they couldn't remember or didn't notice , then I would pick it out . Okay , just remember you got to shake that first , because it's like an aerosol .

Make sure you shake that first , or make sure you breathe out all the way first , then bring the inhaler over . So , whatever it is , we would correct their inhaler technique . Then we'd have them teach it back to us . No-transcript . Outside of the pool noodle and then there's a little bit of saran wrap in the middle .

I said , okay , now try breathing through that . That's what we have to try to breathe through when we're having an asthma attack or an asthma flare . Look at this big piece of this paper towel tube . Look how big that is in the middle , nothing causing problems . You can breathe right through that

. I would always say , if you remember nothing else about today , you do not want to be a pool noodle , and they would laugh , but it would help them remember . Yeah , I got to keep that slowing down in my lungs . So we do that on the first visit .

The second visit we come back and we teach them how to make their house allergy and asthma friendly In cleaning supplies . I would write another grant to be able to get cleaning supplies for them and actually teach them how to clean .

You would think that people know how to clean their house , but you got to do things a little bit differently with allergies and asthma , to make sure that you're getting rid of dust , you're getting rid of mold and some things that wouldn't maybe bother some of the other people , helping them feel like , instead of being a victim of that disease , that they , hey ,

you know what . I can do something to make sure that I'm not having so many bad days and I'm not ending up in the emergency room . The stats for this and this is one of the reasons we won the award we reduced people that ended up in the hospital that participated in our program . We reduced that by 87% yes , 87 . Visits to the ER decreased by 75% .

People taking prednisone , as we like to call it , satan's little tic-tacs , because you get a little crazy when you're on it . We were able to cut that in half for the people participating in our program . People missing remember I talked about missing work days we decreased that 80% . And kids missing school we decreased that by 51% .

So really we're helping these people have a better quality of life . They don't have all these medical bills . I think it was for every $1 that we would spend in the program going out and visit them , we were saving . I believe it was $3 in medical costs to the insurance companies . These programs are all over the country .

A lot of the public health departments have them . Some hospitals even have these asthma home visit programs , if you're interested . I know a lot of people go oh honey , I have had asthma all these years .

I got to teach you a thing or two , and usually they don't know as much as they think they do or they're missing things , and so really these programs are fantastic . I can't rave about them enough . So check and see if there's one in your area that is so helpful .

There's things we don't think about , like curtains , window blinds Huh , what do you ?

So it's okay If you have something like that over your bed or those two-inch wood blinds . The horizontal areas are going to trap dust , making sure that you're cleaning those a lot or switching to something else . What we did in my daughter's room because she was extra sensitive to dust is we had just the Roman shades . They would just roll up during the day .

It's that vertical surface . None of the dust will stick to it . And then we'd roll it down and we had little shears underneath that . I made sure that all the curtains we can have washed . My in-laws had a vacation home and you know how they would nail those curtains up to the wall . Those had not been washed in 30 years .

So make sure you're washing your curtains , cleaning the blinds , your vacuum at least once a week with a HEPA vacuum and make sure that you are vacuuming under the beds . Everybody forgets that , but our asthma specialist did not let us store anything under the beds , because think about the last time you actually gave a good cleaning under your bed .

Usually when you move , which for me is like every 13 years or something like that If you are short on storage and you do need to put things under the bed , they do make really low , narrow bins that you can get you can slide underneath .

Make sure when you're vacuuming every single week , pull those out , vacuum underneath it , wipe off the top of that lid with the microfiber cloth and make sure you're keeping that dust down In bathrooms .

Make sure that you're running the exhaust fan the entire time you're showering and an additional 15 minutes and that's really going to pull that moisture out of that room . Another thing to look for I love interior design shows , obviously , because that's my jam . I see this fantastic how they're tiling the bathrooms .

Well , 10 years , 15 years down the road , you're going to have cracked grout . You're going to have missing grout , you're going to have missing grout and that can cause black mold to grow all behind your wall . Ask me how . I know Happened in my last house . Sometimes a shower surround might be a better option . They've changed over the years .

They used to be really ugly when I was younger . Now they make them . I have one upstairs and it looks like white subway tile . You can get them , so they look like good marble , not like the kind of marble that they used to make .

So water intrusion is really a problem for a lot of people and I don't know if you've ever heard of water meters or little water alarms . You can get inexpensive water alarms from the hardware store . You can put those by your water heater . When those go out , those go out and you've got 50 gallons flooding your basement , which we also had happen .

You can put them behind your washing machine if it leaks . You can put them by toilets if they leak . They have some that are really inexpensive and they will do a really high decibel sound that will wake up the entire neighborhood , or they even have versions you can connect to your phones While you're traveling on vacation . It can alert you .

If you're at work , you're traveling , it will let you know that something's leaking . So there's a lot of prevention that goes on with that we talk about . You don't want little critters in your house , so making sure that you take away their food and water source is really important .

Washing the dishes before you're going to bed , wiping down the countertops , getting those teenagers or college kids , whoever's at home , making sure that you're using chip clips , making sure that things are stored in Tupperware containers . Take that trash out . You don't want that smell , bringing in the mice and roaches and that type of thing .

I could go on forever .

Well , we'd go to the hospital and have pizza and movie night and then we would have the other kids help out . Hey , can you go grab the nebulizer for me ? Can you grab a vial of albuterol ? Can you go get the oximeter ? We need to stick that on his finger .

So getting everybody involved , because I wasn't always going to be there and everybody needs to know how to respond in an emergency if someone was in trouble .

There was a time I was out sitting up for a garden party in my backyard . I don't know what set me off . I was coughing so hard and , andy , I don't know if you've ever done this , where you're coughing so hard , you're trying to throw up , you've got a really bad asthma attack .

I came into the house and I was just shaking and I was trying to get the nebulizer . My son just swooped in behind me , grabbed the nebulizer , put the outbeater on , put the kit together , put it on , turned it on and handed it to me , and I needed that right then because I was doubled over on my knees trying not to throw up .

So having everybody in the family know how to help with whatever disease it is If it's with diabetes , have them know how to check your blood sugar and how to be able to give you your insulin . If it's with any other disease , whatever that is , everybody in the family needs to know how to treat that and let everybody know .

Sorry , I haven't spent that much time with you this week . You know , maybe we can go out to lunch on the weekend or something , because other kids are going to get left out when one kid's in the hospital . That can be a problem . And then don't be afraid to ask for help .

If you need somebody to help take your carpool shift , if you need somebody to run your kids to soccer , if you need people to bring in meals when people are like , oh , if there's anything I can do , just let me know . I could really use a meal . Tonight . I haven't gone to the grocery store . I am so tired of starting a migraine , whatever it is .

You know people do want to help , so give them something concrete to do , and then we use a lot of humor in our family . So we're , yeah , we're always . And I know , jenny , you love Aladdin , so we'll quote lines from Disney movies , and with the one with the little penguins I just forgot the name of it where they with Alex the lion , madagascar thank you .

The penguins when they get to the wrong place they go . Well , this sucks . You know my daughter would quote that . We'd quote other movies . Try to have some fun with it , because you're either going to laugh or cry .

If you're listening to this podcast , put your laundry in if you can't remember . And then we would always set a day of the week . We've got a house full of kids when they were younger , so everybody would have a day of the week . So every Friday my husband worked 410 . So Friday morning you'd go pop the laundry in .

So once a week is best practice for washing your bedding . Obviously , dry it . I don't know if people are living in different climates . Really , drying it outside and hanging it on the clothesline is the worst possible thing you could do . If you have allergies , that pollen is going to stick to that wet fabrics .

If you can use a dryer , that's really the best thing to do . And then we would limit the stuffed animals for our kids . Grandma would always give them something for their birthday and Christmas and any other reason , because they were so cute . We'd limit it . We'd say , okay , well , you can put two of your favorite stuffies on your bed .

The rest were in a bin covered up with the lid on . Then about once a month we'd also wash and dry the stuffed animals too . Sometimes that can affect the fur .

Sometimes you can put them in a lingerie bag or a pillowcase and then pin that over the top and put safety pins all along the top of it , and then it doesn't get as much agitation , but making sure that that room is really clean . Also , you can use air cleaners in the rooms . We swear by air cleaners .

We have them in each of the bedrooms , so that can really help too . But yeah , good question about the stuffed animals . Those are a magnet for dust .

There are some sprays out there that are low odor , that are allergy and asthma friendly , that reduce allergen . You can give the couch a quick spritz or the carpet , turn on the ceiling fan , make sure all that airs out before your guest gets there , and a lot of things that I would do .

If I would go to a house for an asthma home visit and I would pull up to the house and the yard was just a mess , I knew the inside was going to look that way too , I would just pre-medicate . I'd use my albuterol before I'd go in . If I go to a friend's house that has dogs , I'm also allergic to dogs , so I just use my nail art before I go .

I'm just knowing . You know I may need to use it again when I get in there , but there's things we can do to kind of preempt it for us as well .

Now they have dusters that the dust will actually stick to , so being able to go all throughout the house and we do , we do the fans do . On top of . Well , if people are still using VCRs or DVD players , or maybe your router TV screens , anything like that , make sure you're dusting all of that as well . Good suggestion .

We need to just say the anti-inflammatory or the one that you're going to take every morning and every night , and then this one is when you're having symptoms . You can go ahead

and take it . I think that's important in offering resources in the countries where they live . So not everybody lives in the US that goes through my socials or follows my blog or anything like that .

I'll share resources from Australia or England or something from India , and so making sure they have resources in their country and then knowing that things that I may share in the US may not apply to other countries because our healthcare system is different .

We may pay significantly more for inhalers here than they do in other countries , and I know Congress had addressed that , and three out of the four inhaler companies have actually lowered their co-pays to $35 . One did not . My inhaler is one of those that's still quite expensive .

I have to not only use insurance , but then I have to download a coupon and use a coupon every year to be able to get that extra $50 off . I think that things are going to be different in all the different countries and you're right when it comes to different customs and things in different countries .

So for some cultures having a chihuahua , they believe that that will absorb all of the diseases in the home . But then it's also an asthma trigger if they have asthma and are allergic to dogs . So how do you approach that ? I would never tell people to get rid of their pets .

I was on an asthma home visit and went into a home and a woman said if you're going to tell me to get rid of my dog , you can just turn around and walk right back out that door . And I said oh no , I'm not one of those kind of people , don't worry .

But is there a way that they can still have their pet but maybe have a pet-free room for the child to sleep in at night ? Maybe the dog isn't allowed in the bedroom and maybe the door stays closed and the showers ? Before they go to bed to get all the dander off , them climb into those nice clean sheets that they just washed . At the week mark .

They have their air cleaner in there , so maybe can they have one safe room that the pet's not allowed in . So you have to be a little bit delicate with different people and the needs that they have .

They've been around for what I think over a hundred years or something . They have all sorts of videos . They have an asthma basics or an asthma 101 . There's another one , asthma and Allergy Foundation of America , afa , and then the third one is Allergy and Asthma Network .

There are the professional organizations , but a lot of times that information is a lot higher literacy level and a little bit harder for people to understand . But these three seem to focus more on basic webinars for people to understand throughout the year . So those are some good options , fantastic , thank you .

I'm trying not to respond to hearing my name , but I do have a question , because we feel like we lose things when we're told that we can't have the smell good stuff and the candles and the perfumes and the fragrances . What would you tell someone who'd be diagnosed that they have to when they have to give these things up ?

What are alternatives for them to still have a little fun and not die of , you know , suffocation from having the asthma ?

I fly with an N95 mask because when I get COVID I'm on oxygen for six months all day long , so I'm trying to avoid that . I can even taste it through the mask , so I'll premedicate . Same thing I'll premedicate before I get on the plane .

If somebody you know that's their go-to and if that's triggering an asthma attack for them or family members , is there a different type of perfume that they could try ? A different type of perfume that they could try ?

I had a really awkward conversation where I had to ask the secretary at the health department where I work not to wear her patchouli oil because I could smell it out in the hall before I even got to the office . So is there a different type of perfume that they can try ?

With the house being a little bit stuffy , you can actually switch on the fan so it circulates the air through your house on a regular basis . It increases those air exchanges that can help have a little teeny , tiny candle right here . I'll turn it on for maybe 10 , 15 minutes , that's it , and then it's off . And it's not a strong scent , it's just vanilla .

You can treat yourselves every once in a while , but it's going to be trial and error . If you're trying something that's giving asthma attack , think maybe I should use a different scent . I had one in the fall . There was something that was pumpkin , way too spicy . Threw that one away . I can just do vanilla and it gives me a little bit of a scent .

So we're not here to kill all their fun . We're here to say , oh , we'll try something else in that area that might be a little bit safer for you .

He is now starting to develop his asthma again . It's almost like his body adjusted . So he's having to learn more about his asthma as an adult , because he's 25 and he hasn't really dealt with it since he was in elementary . Do you have any tips or suggestions I could share with him ? We made him get rid of his cat .

He had a cat and we thought maybe that has helped . But do you have any other tips you could share with somebody that is now dealing with it as an adult ? That's ?

So one of the best things you can do and I know Arizona gets raging hot like we do , and sometimes you get that- nice little breeze .

I don't care if there's a nice breeze coming in . Okay , does he have an air cleaner in his room ?

Because most people only take their inhaler two or three days a week and they'll say , well , I take mine four days a week . Then you have the real number , because they're not telling you seven to please you . You're getting to what's really going on . There are some people say what's the barrier and what's going on there ?

Can they afford the controller inhaler they need to take every morning and night ? Do they need to pair it with another activity ? Are they brushing their teeth every morning and every night ?

It's pairing it with another activity and it's helping him understand why my thing is I want to do that . Well , why ? Why do I have to take this ? So , once I understood that that's keeping that swelling down down in the lungs Remember that pool noodle .

If you're a pool noodle and you get a cold on top of that , or you get COVID on top of that , or the flu or anything else , you're going to end up in the ER , you're going to end up in the hospital and you're going to be sick for a long time .

It takes a long time , once that swelling's there , to get that swelling down in the lungs , because the lungs do not like to be bothered . So preventing that from happening in the first place can be really helpful . They helpful , they did come out with that . There's a new treatment they use .

Oh , there's new guidelines that they use and it's called um smart therapy and you use the same inhaler as your reliever inhaler as you do as your controller inhaler . Some people are like , look , I'm not going to use it every day , I'm not going to remember I got stuff going on in my life . It's just too much so for him .

Instead of um , this inhaler that I have is just albuterol there . There's a newer one which I can't get to right now because it's upstairs . It's a combination of albuterol and it has that little anti-inflammatory in it .

So if he's having asthma attacks during the week and this new medication has been out just over a year it was available forever in Europe and it's called Air Supra , it's all one word . So it has albuterol in it and it has a little bit of the anti-inflammatory as well .

So every time if he's having a flare-up and he's going to use his albuterol , he's going to get a little kick of that anti-inflammatory . There's two controller inhalers on the market that you can use every day and then you can also use when you're having an asthma attack , and that's Dulera and Simbacort . Both of them have a medicine in called F motor all .

If you look at graphs of how albuterol works and how from motor all works , they're identical . It works just as fast as albuterol , but it lasts longer . So those two medications , studies have shown um I'm not all throughout the world and here in the us that people can use those if they don't want to use it .

Say , he remembers to take his simbacort or his dual air twice a week . Then he can use the same one for his reliever inhaler , because some people don't like carrying around two inhalers .

I just put craft paper around the outside to mimic the color of the pool little . You go to the dollar store and get those latex rubber bands . You could see this how the bands are just pulling in around that when you have an asthma attack . These bands , they're smooth muscles and they tighten and they shorten and they just squeeze from the outside .

You got all that swelling going on from the inside . Look at that versus the pool noodle . Let me flip them around and then what little room is left ? There's my little saran wrap . So try breathing through that versus this . So try breathing through that versus this . So having them just understand .

You know you're going to have a better quality of life if you can really prevent having problems in the first place going on with the lungs . I mean , most people don't want to hear that . You know , 20 years down the road they're going to be on oxygen because they did control their asthma and it transitioned to COPD . They don't care .

That's far down the road . They don't care . But you can ask them is there anything that you can do now that you want to do that you feel like you can't do because of asthma ?

He might say , well , I can't play basketball with my buddies because I'm really short of breath or you know , whatever it is he likes to do , and you can say you know , humor me what would happen if you tried using your inhaler , say like every day for two weeks , like morning and night , like the doctor wanted you to , just curious to see if you feel like

you don't have to use your reliever inhaler as much , if you can keep up with your buddies in basketball or skateboarding , whatever he likes to do . So sometimes , if you phrase it that way , like fine , I'll try it . You know that I follow up with them in two weeks they're like I didn't use my inhaler in two weeks .

That never happens Sometimes you can try and approach something like that , thank you so much .

I wish I had a pool noodle and something to explain what my joint is like .

I would go to the dollar store every spring and I would buy these out of pocket , pay with it for my own money . I would make sets of these for all of our school nurses . In other places they're employed by the schools , but they were employed by the health departments . Give them a set of these every year . You always have a whole bunch of new nurses .

I put a little flyer in there about the asthma home visit program . I'm like . These are latex-free . You can teach students about what happens and why it's important for them to use their inhaler . This costs almost nothing .

If you don't like your using , go back and say is there something else ? I just don't like this one . There's injectables that they use now to control asthma . There's a lot out there . Don't give up . Keep trying until you find something that works for you and works for your body .