Question:

Hi all, I am looking for any information I can get about asthma and kids (in particular kids age 2.5-3 years old)…Any kind of information in how to deal with kids at home with this problem? What kind of food I should avoid or recommended to give? What most important advices I should follow to avoid this child asthma attack? Any any kind of such informatiom. Thank you so much in advance

Response:

Hi all, I am looking for any information I can get about asthma and kids (in particular kids age 2.5-3 years old)…Any kind of information in how to deal with kids at home with this problem? What kind of food I should avoid or recommended to give? What most important advices I should follow to avoid this child asthma attack? Any any kind of such informatiom.

What I would recommend is getting the book: The Asthma Sourcebook   by Francis V. Adams MD I consider it a very good primer on asthma that is both informatitive and readable. Another book I have heard recommended is: The Family Guide to Asthma and Allergies    by The American Lung Association In general an asthmatic can and should eat the same generally balanced diet as anybody else.  This (of course) is as long as there is not a food allergy involved. Avoiding an asthma attack means controling the asthma.  You should view an ‘asthma attack’ as ‘asthma symptoms’ and focus (with the help of your doctor) on controlling the underlying disease processes. There will be many people who will offer patent remedies and various ‘cures.’  Most of these are either wishfull thinking or a cynical attempt to access the contents of your wallet.  Listen to the advice of your doctor and do not try any alternative therapies untill you have learned enough about asthma to evaluate thier safety and potential effectivness. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Thank you so much in advance

Response:

Question:

  Schools are little cesspools of diseases.

Tell me about it. I’m a primary school (elementary) teacher, who has asthma which is an allergic reaction to colds. One sniffle and I’m hacking away and coughing up buckets of phlem. Just thought I’d add my tuppence…. Claire

Response:

The message warning about asthma triggers at schools is right on. Our local grade school is about 60 years old, and there are a good number of kids who had classes in the moldy, damp basement rooms who developed lots of allergy problems that disappeared when they were transferred either to upstairs rooms or out of the school entirely.

Response:

   I have three children, 2 with asthma, one with "a tendency" – ie: he    produces much mucus when he has a cold.  We’ve just moved to damp Nova    Scotia to a 100 year old house which we discovered is a home for bats    in the warm weather.  Since school started, my kids have been ill – 10    There you go.    Schools are little cesspools of diseases.  My kids are never sick during    the summer, and have constant colds and sniffles when at school (not to    mention the time my son came home with head lice).  My son is worse, so    I suspect he has allergies, but since I haven’t had him allery tested,    I don’t know what to.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if it included    something he was exposed to at school.    I don’t know about the bats, but don’t neglect the influence from your    kids being in school. Schools are one of the first places to send your kids if you want them sick (second only to a doctor’s waiting room). But what choice do we have? Our kids have got to go to school, and we have to grocery shop with, work with, talk to, etc, people who’ve sent their children to school. The germs are out there, and they’ve got our number. But there’s sick and then there’s sick with complications, and there’s getting sick while already compromised. You may be able to minimize or avoid the complications by eliminating as many of the sources of irritants as possible. Going into a respiratory illness with already-inflamed airways is no fun at best, and at worst an ideal setup for secondary infections and/or bronchospasm. If you can clean up the house, eliminate the bats, the molds and the dust, filter the air, etc, and make sure that there’s a clean and proper level of humidification, you may have some luck in minimizing complications. There also may be some other effective preventative steps to take (e.g., using/increasing inhaled steroids, using oral decongestants, using prophylactic antibiotics, increased fluids, etc) that can lower the risk of complications. Of course, all of this must be considered against the severity of the chronic complications, and must be recommended/approved by the doctor(s). Good Luck Mark — Mark Feblowitz,   GTE Laboratories Inc., 40 Sylvan Rd.  Waltham, MA 02254

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