Groups like the Asthma Foundation promote the need to have an asthma plan to be prepared for what to do if an acute asthma attack happens. What will I do?
I thought about it and realised that I have an asthma plan worked out through a lifetime of experience living with asthma.
Here is my personal asthma plan:
[ul]Be aware of the main allergic triggers for my asthma and take care to avoid high exposure including getting out and leaving(cats pollens things to spray in houses against insects cleaning sprays ‘smellies’ etc house dust wool…)
Avoid getting cold and wet
Avoid strong pollen-laden winds even to the point of moving city
[b]Use the Buteyko Breathing approach if I am getting wheezy and tight: Settle my breathing down. Focus on breathing out fully. Avoid hyperventilation. Allow myself to pause my breathing and wait through the acute bit (up to a minute).
Drink water with some salt to get fully hydrated and phlegm freed up.[/b] This could include drinking ginger tea as an expectorant.
Tap on key pressure points on my body associated with breathing or put a vibrator on them.
Reset the vagus nerve and ensure my stomach is down below my diaphragm.
Use a control medication regularly and reliably at a level that ensures most acute attacks never happen (for me 2 puffs a day of Serotide)
Ensure my vitamin A and magnesium levels are adequate.
Carry a ventolin puffer with me (not nearly so critical now I have mastered the Buteyko Breathing approach)
Avoid people with colds or flu like the plague and if I catch a cold or flu go to bed and look after myself really really well
Having a steam inhalation (hot water in a bowl under a tea-towel) can also help
[b]Get to hospital emergency ‘early’ rather than ‘late'[/b] (more later)
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As far as the ‘get to hospital emergency ‘early’ rather than ‘late” goes it almost never happens now. It last happened 11 years ago on the day we moved house. The house had been treated fully with a pest treatment for cockroaches and also there was a large gum tree in the backyard covered in a black mould (both completely removed as part of the treatment for the acute asthma attack). I had an extremely acute attack and we drove straight to Prince Charles Hospital Emergency Ward. This was the right thing to do.
I would also take someone as my support person. It is very difficult to talk with an acute asthma attack and they can help explain and also alert and ask for attention.
I’d take a warm comforter rug with me as hospitals often take clothing away and put on light cotton gowns in heavily air-conditioned environments. This is very dangerous when having an acute asthma attack.
Going to emergency ward is a pretty big experience and they are busy strange places but it can be exactly the right thing to do. The question is when is the right time.
Years ago my asthma specialist advised me to go early not late. So the next time I had an acute attack I got a friend to drive me to emergency while I thought it was still not very severe. When we got there I could barely walk in folded double and creeping along but what really alarmed me was that they took a lung volume reading and my lung volume was down 90% (ie. it was only 10% of what it should be). And that was what I had thought was ‘early’!
So it is a really important lesson to understand how severe the attack is.
Measuring lung volume very regularly over time to get to know and understand this is very important. I learned that if my breathing drops 10% the effects set in (anxiety rises markedly and observably to people who know me) even though at this level wheezing is not audible.
It also helps to get well assessed when not having an acute attack.
And to find out what local services are available instead of heading for an emergency ward. Do local doctors provide an emergency service? Do they have a nebuliser in their surgery? What are their after hours arrangements?
After a lifetime of being severely hampered by asthma now I almost forget it is a condition I still have. It is very well-controlled. No more the times in hospital the destruction of months of my life every spring the too-frequent near-death experiences the anxiety the high levels of asthma medications (the specialists got me up to 42 doses in a day).
Evolving an effective asthma plan has changed my life.