My Life as an Asthma Mom

Did you know that you can hurt your ribs (or the muscles attached to your ribs) when coughing?  Recently, a friend contact me who had injured her ribs coughing. She was in a LOT of pain. I feel for her - because I did the same thing 2 years ago. I had a nasty case of bronchitis and I was coughing pretty hard. You know the kind of coughing - where you cough so hard you feel like you are going to throw up?   Suddenly, I had a sharp pain in my side. And I knew instantly that I had pulled a muscle attached to my ribs.   I called my doctor, because I wanted to see if I was okay. Once at his office, he said it was probably a pulled muscle, and it was just going to take time to heal.  He had me take an over the counter pain killer, and use an ice pack for the first few days ( to control swelling). Then he had me switch to a heating pad (to relax the muscles.)  I also found that a little counter pressure helped too (gently pushing in on my ribs with a pil

Humming? Some of you may be wondering, what are sinuses? Well, they are small hollow holes inside your skull that surround the nose and are lined with tissue. If you want to see a photo, you can check out this link.   Those pesky little sinuses have a habit of getting swollen, filled with mucus, and infected. If  you have had a sinus infection, you know how painful it can be. You may have pain on either side of your nose, between your eyes, in your forehead or even in your upper teeth and jaw. How's that for fun? If you have allergies and asthma, you are more likely to have a sinus infection .  Your doctor may give you an antibiotic to help with the infection. Some people swear by using a Neti Pot . It's fun - like jumping into a swimming pool and forgetting to plug your nose. Asthma Doc let us know our options, but also mentioned humming. He said he learned about it at a national allergy, asthma and immunology conference. Sounds weird, I know! But we