My Life as an Asthma Mom

Well, well, well, if my old college English professor could only see me now!  This is my 10th year in a row being included in the Best Asthma Blogs by Healthline!    10  Thank you Healthline!  My professor told me that I was a terrible writer and needed to use more "flowery descriptions" in my writing. This was in the late 80's and I wasn't about to retype my paper in the college typing center.  Who had time to add flowery descriptions? It was my last year of college before I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree (first generation!)  I was struggling to balance 18 credit hours and working full time in a record store. You may have heard of records,  they call them "vinyl" now.  They were flat black discs with grooves and you would play them on a special turntable. The turntable had a swing arm with a needle that you would place on one of the grooves in the record. And the needle always seemed to be dul...

(Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America) It's here! Asthma Awareness Month! Many of you may think, yeah, yeah, I know all of that stuff. Did you know that many people are not living their best life? They THINK their asthma is "just fine". When it's really not Ask yourself: (Baylor University)  If you answered "yes" to any of these, talk to your doctor! (Ya know you can do visits over your phone or computer during COVID, right?) You may need to start (or increase) your daily, controller inhaler. Did your know that the global guidelines to control asthma recommend a daily, controller inhaler to control the swelling in your lungs? With asthma, we have swelling in the lungs - which you can't see or feel. But it's there.  Just like with high blood pressures and high cholesterol - you can't see or feel those either, but your doctor will give you medicine to take every day. Same thing with asthma.  Gett...

Well, well, well, I never thought that my allergies and asthma could have a positive side - but apparently they do! New research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health just released a study called " Respiratory Allergies and Allergic Asthma May Have Protective Mechanisms in COVID-19." Huh? How could that possible work?? You may have heard that those with asthma aren't getting as sick as we all feared we would with COVID19. Which doesn't make much sense - because those of us with asthma usually get REALLY sick with respiratory infections.  Our family knows this all too well - 12 times in the hospital for asthma for Son #2 and Daughter Kitty is enough to last a lifetime!) Reports from China showed that allergies and asthma were NOT risk factors for COVID19.  Hmmm Why? Enter the ACE2 gene!  I had a hard time finding how the ACE2 gene works in simple terms, but there was an ...