My Life as an Asthma Mom

  Is it OK to ask my doctor for a different inhaler?  Well....the short answer is yes.  Don't like your inhaler? Want to try a different kind? It's perfectly OK to ask your doctor about that! Some organizations are trying to encourage doctors to slow down and listen to patients preferences. And part of that is deciding WITH your doctor what is best for you. Shared Decision Making  Allergy & Asthma Network and CHEST have created a tool that allows clinicians and patients to work together to find the best treatment.  The patient tells the doctor their preferences, and the doctor figures out their labs and bio markers.  That helps them figure out the best medicine for their asthma.  They say: "Targeted therapies + shared decision = personalized medicine" Here's an example of what you fill out as a patient Pretty easy, right?  Having a say in what inhaler you take for your asthma is important.  If you don't like it, you won't use it - right? If you can

 This is one of those words that can strike fear in people  Mold For those of you who have had mold in an apartment or home, I get it. I do.  I had black mold in my first two homes.   I've attended many in-depth trainings for my environmental health job. And I now help other families with evidence based interventions. (And a few stories about our experiences thrown in.) Here are some basic things I learned along the way: Health Effects of Mold Mold can irritate the throat, lungs, eyes, skin and nose. It can also cause an asthma flare. When we  found black mold in our play room, our daughter had just been discharged from the hospital after a battle with pneumonia. Can I link it to the mold? Maybe? You don't need to "test for mold"  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says: "In most cases, if visible mold growth is present, sampling is unnecessary." When we had mold in our first home (20 years ago), the disaster cleanup company wouldn't allow their