Asthma proves challenge > Parent gains experience through child’s disease

When I talk with the parent of a child newly diagnosed with asthma – something that happens all too often – I have the urge to download a portion of my brain onto a diskette and hand it over.

It’s not that I’m the last word in treatment of children with this disease of the airways. But as the saying goes, I’ve been there, done that, for more than 18 years.

With any chronic disease, knowledge is the key. The word “disease” is an important one. It’s easy to think of asthma as being like the flu – something your child has only when there is wheezing, chronic coughing or other symptoms.

It’s not like that. Asthma is a physical disease that is there all the time – like diabetes or glaucoma – even when you can’t see it or hear it.

Asthma is a disease of overreaction. Things which make my airways respond appropriately will make my son’s airways overreact – tighten up and produce mucus, making it hard for him to breathe.

For my son, these things – known as triggers – include cigarette smoke, perfume and hairspray, dog dander, cat dander, mold, trees, grasses, feathers, cold air, exercise and viruses such as colds or influenza. For other people, certain foods or other items may be triggers.

There are medications which can help the asthmatic. Some are short-term medications, such as the drug in the inhaler my son uses when his breathing is bothering him. Others are preventative drugs -delivered through inhalers or pills or a breathing mask connected to a nebulizer, for example. These treatments are used on a daily basis because doing so can make the airways less “twitchy.” Preventative treatments such as these – if used regularly as prescribed – can reduce the need to use short-term medications so often.

But the best way to attack asthma is to know the child’s triggers and avoid them. With some irritants, it may be the only thing that works.

Early on, I got rid of perfumes and made the switch to unscented face cream, deodorant and the like. Liquid detergents worked best because they dissolved better than powder, and I stopped using fabric softener – which is basically perfume.

To reduce dust mites, we put plastic covers on my son’s mattress and pillow, and also purchased an air cleaner with a HEPA filter for his bedroom. My parents got rid of their dog and cat, and we banned smoking from our home.

Visiting in homes where there were pets became very limited. So often someone would say, “I’ll put the cat out.” But it’s the cat dander that most people are allergic to, and it takes six months for the dander to clear out.

I worried about what my son would be exposed to in school, and found from the beginning that teachers were both caring and helpful in reducing the situations that might be a problem. He’s been able to have pretty much a normal life, including stints on basketball, baseball and football teams.

One of the best things we did, at the urging of Bangor physician Dr. Leo Leonidas, was to make regular use of a peak-flow meter to test our son’s breathing capacity – a much more reliable measure than listening for wheezing. The meter is an inexpensive gadget that comes with a chart listing normal peak flows for a person’s height.

The age-old questions “Is he sick? Should we take him to the doctor?” were much more easily answered with the help of a peak-flow meter.

The other best thing we did was to sign up for the first Asthma Care Training program in Bangor, somewhere around 1984. My son learned to be responsible for his own asthma, as much as his age would permit.

During one session, I heard Bangor allergist Dr. Paul Shapero say something I’ve been quoting ever since: “If you let asthma go an hour, it takes three hours to recover. If you let it go a day, it takes three days to recover. If you let it go a week, it takes three weeks to recover.”

That is the absolute truth.

In place of the Asthma Care Training program, families now use the Asthma Education Clinic, an outpatient program of Eastern Maine Medical Center. Patients need a doctor’s referral to use the clinic – which customizes its program to the age of the patient – but staffer Jan Thompson said that those interested are welcome to call for information at 973-7520.

Home Front is a monthly parenting column written by NEWS staffers. Roxanne Moore Saucier is a Style Desk writer and the genealogy columnist.