Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Asthma/Allergy Update - me, B and Oz

So, lately our house has been feeling a little...small. It's a great house - a ranch with a full walk-out basement. Not a stitch of carpet anywhere, and we've kept it fairly upholstery free. (If you're asthmatic, you know that the first thing you look for in a house is hardwood and/or tile!)

We have three bedrooms...and three kids. The two oldest boys love sharing a room with a bunk bed, and Ig has his own room. But the living space is very close to the bedrooms, and while we've made the basement into a bright and fun rec room, the kids don't spend a ton of time down there.

....which is why we've been hitting open houses on weekends. We're not sure we're serious about moving, but we're curious to see what's out there. Plus, we're having some "issues" with our town's special education programs, and they may well be insurmountable, so we may well have to move, once we find a town that's more willing to provide necessary  services for Ig. But that's another post for another day.

So, to my point. We went to an open house on Sunday, and in addition to having two cats, they also had loads of potpourri to hide the cat smell. And loads of broadloom. As soon as we walked in, I took two puffs of albuterol.

After checking out the house (beautiful curb appeal, bad corner, weird downstairs floor plan), we headed home. Within five minutes, I was coughing hard enough to gag. More albuterol.  Then I was OK for the rest of the day...but the next morning, I felt like I'd swallowed a Nerf ball, and it had lodged somewhere between my throat and chest. Not a nice sensation. And my chest hurt, too. I wasn't sure if it was asthma-related, indigestion, or just muscular.

I'm much better today, but realizing that I have a lot to learn about my triggers and the severity of each trigger.  A few sips of ice water got me going today! I need to start documenting what they are. Also, I need to see about getting a spare inhaler.  Right now I have one that I keep in the bathroom, and one I carry with me, but my purse MDI only has a few puffs left on it. Will they give you an RX for spare?

In other news, B tried eggs today for the first time since he was a baby. He had a moderate allergy, and they used to make him vomit. Last time he had them, just a few years ago, his face went bright red and he had a headache. He's always afraid to eat them - as well as mayo, French toast, and anything else "eggy."

But today, he had a little bit of my hard-boiled egg - just a few bites of white and yolk, and he's been perfectly fine.

But Ozzy's been coughing ever since. Go figure.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd maybe ask the realtor to only show you houses that don't have cats. I know from experience that, even in a house with no carpet, cat hair takes months to get rid of. Cat smell takes even longer to get rid of (because for a house to smell like cat, the owner needs to really neglect stuff, and there's probably cat pee soaked into the boards of the floor).

To the other question, my doctor actually encourages me to get a spare, and I don't think they'll give you hassle about it, as long as you have a way of knowing how much you have left in it. I know there are inhaler scales out there that will let you know if there's medicine left in the inhaler, or if it's empty. It's much easier to just keep one at work and one in my exercise bag and one in my backpack than it is to carry the same one around everywhere and hope I don't forget it.

Aimee said...

Thank you! I wish all MDIs had the dose counter, but only a few of the name brands seem to. Call me cheap, but albuterol is albuterol, and I'm fine with the lower-cost generics!

Anonymous said...

see, my little miss monkey (our resident allergy/asthma patient) thankfully is only really sensitive to mold and we think maybe pollen which is good and bad... good cause we know what they are and know when we will be encountering, bad because she's allergic to things i have very little control over. so its a mixed bag really.... as far as the inhaler thing.. she takes xopenex both in her MDI and her neb (we also use atrovent in her neb as needed), and her xopenex doesnt have a dose counter but her advair HFA (wayyy better than the diskus for her btw) does. But she needs the xopenex MDI both at home and school, so when we went to fill the script, I told the pharmacy that and they just split the script into two smaller portions basically so we had an inhaler for home and one for school. So i know that at least our pharmacy can do that, i'd be willing to bet yours can/will too...just tell em that you need it split so you can have one at home and one to carry with you would be my suggestion.....

Anonymous said...

Hello there...
I've been posting comments for a while now on people's blogs, specially those who suffer from asthma and allergies. My 10 year old daughter was diagnosed with asthma not long ago and I am sure the change of location (two years ago) was the trigger. We used to leave in England, the weather (as cold as it was) and the air were much cleaner than it is here in Los Angeles. We have tried so many different medications to treat her condition but quickly found out she was having allergic reactions to them- From headaches to hives to spending a whole night in the emergency room... I was about to loose my mind! About a month ago I was watching the news with a friend and found out there was a new treatment for asthma and allergies it's called "salt therapy".

The news Segment http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/health/your_health&id=7340604

I know there's one here in Los Angeles, it's very popular in Europe and from what I know there should be one in New York

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/fashion/18SKIN02.html.

I say it's worth a shot. It gave my daughter some relief, she doesn't use her inhaler as often and is definitely off meds!!!
Hope you'll find this helpful, much blessings to all.
Lynn.

Anonymous said...

Strangely, only my Advair discus has a dose counter. Also, I agree with you: albuterol is albuterol!

As a warning, here's something I came across recently: If you need more than one inhaler a month, you may have to ask your doctor to fill out a form basically begging your insurance company to cover it, which they'll review and decide on their own... This depends on how good your insurance is. You may also have to do that if you're on expensive medication (I had to do that for my Advair and Singulair). It's a pain in the behind, but that's how it goes, I guess.