My Life as an Asthma Mom

By now, you have probably seen the story about how Christina Applegate was misdiagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis).  Did you know that 1 in 5 patients can be misdiagnosed with MS?  There's an old saying from doctors: "When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras"   Which means doctors usually look for the most common illnesses or diseases first before looking for a rare disease.  MS could explain neurological problems for someone - but could there be another diagnosis instead? Can you be misdiagnosed with asthma?   That made me wonder how many people can be misdiagnosed with asthma.  There are two things that can happen: Someone can be diagnosed with asthma when it's actually a disease that "mimics" asthma    Someone can have asthma, but NOT be diagnosed with it   My son was only 5 years old when he ended up in the hospital for breathing problems - and THEN we found out he had asthma.  Surprise, surprise!  My...

I just saw a post from TikTok school nurse who discovered that fingertip oxygen monitors (pulse ox) aren't accurate on dark skin.  I know school nurse aren't experts in all areas, and my kid's school nurses were always frantic treating  concussions, diabetes, broken bones, stomach flu, pink eye, lice, etc. So it's no wonder this nurse didn't hear about the problem with wrong readings on oxygen monitors.   Pandemic discovery in 2020    The finding about the problem with finger tip oxygen monitors was discovered during the pandemic in spring of 2020.   Doctors in a Detroit hospital in Ann Arbor noticed that their patients with dark skin seemed to have higher oxygen levels that didn't match the patient's symptoms.  And that the oxygen level (pulse ox) didn't match the oxygen level during a blood draw from the artery (this is different from when they draw blood from a vein.)  An arterial blood gas (ABG) draws blood from an artery to check ox...