My Life as an Asthma Mom

        Do you think you know everything you need to know about asthma?    I know I don't, even though I have had asthma all my life and have 3 teenagers with asthma. I am always looking for any new information. I found a fun slide show on WebMd's website that you can use to test your asthma knowledge. It's called "Quiz: What's Your asthma IQ?" There are 9 questions, and each one explains what the correct answer should be. Take it and see how you do, you might learn something new! I found another article about common asthma myths. This one is from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Asthma Program.   You might be surprised at some of the myths. (Hopefully you won't look like the guy in the photo above when you take the quiz or read the article!)

(http://www.alavert.com/quick-dissolving-tablets) I saw a commercial the other day where a woman was driving a convertible and was stopped at a red light. She sees a guy on a riding lawn mower mowing the grass strip that runs in the middle of the road, and she starts to panic because she can't get the top to go up on her convertible!   (She must have allergies.....) Then she starts sneezing, and her sunglasses end up sideways on her face. She seems a little embarrassed as she smiles at the person in the passenger seat and give s a little laugh. The commercial is advertising allergy pills that you can take that will quickly melt in your mouth. (No need to find water to wash them down.) I can't remember what brand it is, so I was looking online for dis-solvable allergy medicine. I found Alavert (pictured above) and Claritin (pictured below)  (https://www.claritin.com/products/claritin/claritin-reditabs.aspx) Has anyone found a dis-solvable allergy pi...

This is what it looks like at my house lately....... pass the tissues!!! It's good to know that I'm not alone. I was watching a story on the NBC Nightly News about the Pollen Vortex For those of you who had extra long winters, you may be getting a little bit of a break because the ground is still frozen. So things in your area may not be blooming yet. But when it does start to warm up, you could get hit all at once with pollen. One of the quotes from the story above said: "But before you throw away the tissues, experts say the slow start could mean a more intense wallop. “It will be a shorter period by a number of weeks but you will see it all hitting very intensely,” says Dr. Shulan." ( Dr. Shulan is from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology) So, instead of the tress releasing pollen at different times throughout the spring, they may all release their pollen at the same time. So you could suddenly be hit with ALL of the tree...

I think we have "sick building syndrome" in my office.      What is that?  The U.S. National Library of Medicine has an article that lists symptoms from bad indoor air quality. They include: Headache dizziness nausea eye, nose or throat irritation dry cough dry or itching skin difficulty in concentration fatigue sensitivity to odours hoarseness of voice allergies cold flu-like symptoms increased incidence of asthma attacks and personality changes The people that take care of our building recently changed the filters on the air conditioning unit. That's usually a good thing, but for some reason, it made the air in our building smells like a dirty bathroom. It's awful!!! And it seems really humid, in fact I noticed that the posters on my walls are warping! Woah!!! It's really been affecting my asthma. In fact, I had to leave work yesterday b...

Most people love perfume and body sprays. There's nothing wrong with wanting to smell good, but as my neighbor always says "people don't have to take a bath in it!!!" I went to the theater this weekend to see the new Captain America movie. As we were watching the previews, I smelled some REALLY stinky sweet perfume. Ugh. I looked around to see if I could figure out where it was coming from.  I thought it was a woman who had just sat down 2 rows behind me. So, I got up and moved up a few rows.    It seemed better, then suddenly it was MUCH worse. I think it was the woman sitting across from me. Great!!! So I got up and moved about 15 rows up. The smell seemed to come and go. I think she was sitting under one of the air conditioning vents, and every time the AC would turn on, it would spread the smell of her perfume.    Many people don't realize that perfume can be an asthma trigger.  Then it started........first I started to sneeze...

    The annual list is out!!!      Allergy and Asthma Foundation of American (AAFA) has just released this year's list of Spring Allergy Capitals . They are "The Most Challenging Places to Live with Spring Allergies" Is your city on the list? How does a city make it on the list? They are ranked by: Pollen score (pollen, grass, tree and mold spores) Number of medicines people take for allergies) Number of allergy doctors per patient Hubby and I and all three teenagers have allergies and have been using a LOT of boxes of tissues lately. We also take a LOT of allergy medicine. Hubby woke up this morning with two swollen eyes due to allergies. I told him that people are going to think I smacked him!! (Think of one of the scenes from the Disney movie Tangled where Rapunzel smacks people with her frying pan.....)  Can you do anything if you have allergies? Yes!! AAFA has a section on their website about how to treat allergies. Th...