Sad times can cause asthma attacks?

Sadness causing an asthma attack? Yep, it can.

Sunday is one of those days I would like to forget.

.

Even though we have allergies and asthma , we have 2 kitties (long story….we inherited them from our neighbors). Anyway, my sweet little Siamese Kitty seemed really tired Saturday night. We thought he was spending a little too much time wandering around the neighborhood.

He came home and curled up on his favorite chair, nothing unusual about that.

Sunday morning, I woke up to see if he wanted breakfast. He didn’t look good. I’ll spare you the details, but we bundled him up on his blankie and rushed him to the closest animal hospital.

They suspected leukemia or distemper. But let’s face it, either one is fatal.

After $600 in tests, it came back as positive for distemper. The vet told us that Siamese Kitty was really sick, and that of the cats she had seen that had actually survived distemper (very few) were permanently brain damaged and needed special care for the rest of their life.

We couldn’t let Siamese Kitty live that way.

We made the difficult decision to have to put him to sleep. We called the kids to and asked if they wanted to come and say goodbye.

While waiting for them to come, it hit me what was happening, and I started to do the Ugly Cry. And I was crying so hard that I had an asthma attack.

Yep, strong emotions can cause an asthma attack.

Luckily, I take my inhaler EVERYWHERE I go. I quickly pulled out my inhaler an used that while I was waiting for my kids to come say goodbye to their cute and crazy little Siamese Kitty.

How can strong emotions cause an asthma attack? I like to tell people that when you have asthma, your body over reacts - to everything. I call it the "drama queen effect". For those of you who have had teenagers.....well....enough said, right? They over react to everything. So does your body when you have asthma.

(That's why I have a picture of the crown above.) 

Strong emotions (fear, anger, sadness, laughter, etc) are all things that can cause an asthma attack. I was in such shock that it took me a few minutes to realize that a) I was coughing and b) I needed to use my inhaler.

So, if you find yourself in a situation and your emotions are a little out of control, watch your asthma.

And use your inhaler if you need to!