My Life as an Asthma Mom

  My youngest child just aged off our health insurance, and she can't find coverage she can afford. Is anyone else having the same problem? Especially since subsidies for the affordable care act ended? Can you keep insurance through your work?  My daughter wanted to use COBRA and stay on our insurance. What is COBRA? It: "....gives workers and their families who lose their health benefits the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan for limited periods of time under certain circumstances such as voluntary or involuntary job loss, reduction in the hours worked, transition between jobs, death, divorce, and other life events. Qualified individuals may be required to pay the entire premium for coverage up to 102% of the cost to the plan." In simple words, you can keep your health insurance from your job - but will need to pay the entire cost (your work usually pays the majority of your premium).  My daughter would need to pa...

    Are you planning on watching the Opening Ceremony of the Milan Olympics on Friday night? I love watching them and already have Olympic decorations up. Now I just need to decide on a menu.  I have been watching some of the qualifying events, and those athletes are crazy. Did you know downhill skiers can reach speeds of 75 - 95 miles per hour?   Olympic Athletes with Asthma    Did you also know that asthma is the most common chronic condition among elite Olympic athletes? A study published in PubMed says:  "A recent study on more than 1,300 European athletes from the summer Olympics found that asthma prevalence was estimated to 16.5% across all types of sport and most often were found among endurance athletes (55.7%)"    For average Americans,  7.7% have asthma .  All sports are different, but endurance sports seem to have the highest number of athletes with asthma  (think cross country skiers and biathlon - an...

      For those of us with asthma, controlling the swelling in our lungs is important. If we having swelling in our lungs, and then get sick - we can easily develop pneumonia or bronchitis and end up in the hospital. This has happened to my children many times.    We make sure we have refills on our daily, controller (anti inflammatory) inhalers, and when we only have a couple of refills left, we set an appointment with the doctor to make sure we have more refills.      We also make sure we have a reliever inhaler - and I have them in several places so I don't have to run far if I have a sudden asthma attack. I have one in my purse, one in my nightstand upstairs, and one at my desk downstairs - just in case.      When I get really sick (I'm looking at you COVID), my cough is so severe that it's literally impossible for me to use an inhaler. I can only use my nebulizer for breathing treatments. It allows me to just sit and breathe i...

  The flu is raging across the U.S. right now, and my local TV station is reporting high hospitalization rates. Yikes! This worries me because asthma makes every respiratory infection worse. And the flu can lead to pneumonia - which can be deadly.  In fact, my two youngest kids were hospitalized repeatedly when they were little - thanks to RSV and pneumonia. I have also been in Urgent Care a few times with the flu.  What flu symptoms should you watch for?  Symptoms of the flu:  High fever and chills  Body aches Extreme weakness or fatigue Headache Constant cough  Diarrhea or vomiting Stuffy or runny nose  Sore throat  With asthma, you can have swelling in the lungs, which can make any infection worse. Sigh.  Sometimes I wonder if I should tough it out, or go the ER or hospital?   Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America   (AFFA) list  Emergency flu symptoms  for CHILDREN:   AAFA's website recommends CALLING ...

  Let's face it, most moms are responsible for planning and making the holidays magical for our families  Cooking, shopping, decorating the tree and house, planning activities, arranging family photos and coordinating outfits, writing out holiday cards, etc.   Did you know that all of that stress can cause an asthma attack? Stress is a known asthma trigger.  So are strong emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, laughter, or excitement. And you may experience all of those emotions - sometimes in one day during the holidays!  Toxic workplaces can take a toll on your stress and emotions.  Traffic seems to be much worse during the holidays. I had several near accidents last week because people didn't use their blinkers. I will gladly let you in my lane, but I can't read your mind. If you want to pull over in front of me, put your blinker on! Family gatherings can be an adventure. Just because you are all related doesn't mean you will see eye to eye on ...

  We are a family of 5, and four of us have asthma. Sigh. My 3 kids are adults now, but when they were younger they were sick - All. The. Time. After a bad experience with our primary care doctor, we switched their asthma care to a specialist.  I then learned the importance of making sure my kids took their daily, controller inhalers every morning and every night. (Many doctors are now referring to the inhalers as "anti inflammatory' inhalers so patients understand how they work.)  You can see the bronchial tube on the right is more swollen than the bronchial tube on the left. When your bronchial tubes swell (because you were exposed to an asthma trigger), they will  make mucus to protect your bronchial tubes.  You can see how hard it would be to breathe through a bronchial tube that was swollen on the inside and full of mucus. And then (as if that wasn't bad enough already), the smooth muscles bands around the outside also shorten and squeeze.  So you have...