Can You Outgrow Asthma With Exercise

What Are The Treatments For Asthma In Children

If your child has asthma, you will work with their health care provider to create a treatment plan. The plan will include ways to manage your child’s asthma symptoms and prevent asthma attacks, such as:

• Strategies to avoid triggers. For example, if tobacco smoke is a trigger for your child, you should not allow anyone to smoke in your home or car.
• Short-term relief medicines, also called quick-relief medicines. They help prevent symptoms or relieve symptoms during an asthma attack. They include an inhaler to have for your child at all times. It may also include other types of medicines which work quickly to help open your child’s airways.
• Control medicines. They work by reducing airway inflammation and preventing narrowing of the airways. Not all children will take control medicines. Whether or not your child needs them depends on how severe the asthma is and how often your child has symptoms.

If your child has a severe attack and the short-term relief medicines do not work, get medical help right away.

Your child’s provider may adjust the treatment until the asthma symptoms are controlled.

If My Child Has Asthma Can He Or She Participate In Sports And Activities

Exercise, such as long-distance running, may trigger a flare-up in many children with asthma. But with correct management, a child with asthma can fully participate in most sports. Aerobic exercise actually improves airway function by strengthening breathing muscles. Some tips for exercising with asthma include the following:

• Teach your child to breathe through the nose and not the mouth. This helps to warm and humidify the air before it enters the airways.

• During cold weather, have your child wear a scarf over their mouth and nose to warm inhaled air.

• Give your child asthma medicine before exercising, as recommended by your child’s healthcare provider. If your child is not already on controller medicine and they exercise daily, the provider may recommend daily controller medicine.

• Have your child carry their quick-relief inhaler medicine.

Causes And Triggers Of Asthma

Asthma is caused by swelling of the breathing tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs. This makes the tubes highly sensitive, so they temporarily narrow.

It may happen randomly or after exposure to a trigger.

Common asthma triggers include:

• smoke, pollution and cold air
• infections like colds or flu

Identifying and avoiding your asthma triggers can help you keep your symptoms under control.

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More Kids Than Adults Outgrow Their Asthma

Often, children under age 2 who show signs of asthma dont go on to develop the condition. It starts with wheezy bronchitis, says Dr. Schachter. This usually follows a viral respiratory infection, such as a cold. And its often because babies and toddlers have very narrow airways.

These airways are more likely to get infected, which can cause wheezy respiration, Dr. Schachter explains. About three-quarters of these children do get better and do not develop chronic asthma. Presumably their airways grow larger as they age, and this resolves the problem.

Older kids under age 12 may develop respiratory allergies. Breathing in allergens such as pollen, dust, or mold can cause the airways to become inflamed and narrow. This sometimes leads to allergic asthma, which is asthma triggered by those same allergens. But during puberty, up to half of these kids become less symptomatic. Or they lose their asthmatic symptoms altogether, Dr. Schachter notes.

Those children that go into the honeymoon phase may never experience asthma again, says Dr. Schachter. Or they may see their asthma resurface as they hit adulthood. Thats especially common after they have a viral infection.

What about adults? Asthma in adults can improve or even go away. But this is much less common than in children, says Dr. Schachter. It may be because aging and long-term asthma cause an adults lung function to worsen over time.

Can You Outgrow Asthma

Those who have asthma are aware that the condition is incurable. However, there may be stretches of times where asthma attacks and other symptoms dont flare up. While these are nice periods of relief, this doesnt mean your asthma has disappeared. Instead, going months between episodes is a testament to your asthma management plan. Avoiding asthmatic triggers, taking your medication or a combination of the two is working well for you.

You may have heard of instances where children with asthmatic symptoms seemingly stop experiencing their symptoms, out of the blue. The children dont report any further breathing difficulties and go on with their lives. Is there some reality to this or is it just a myth? It is possible to outgrow your asthma? If so, how? Does everyone outgrow their asthma or is it just certain people? Why?

In this article, well answer all those questions and more.

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What Types Of Medicines Treat Or Prevent Eib

There are three types of medicines to prevent or treat the symptoms of EIB. Your health care provider can help you find the best treatment program for you based on your asthma history and the type of activity.

• Short-acting beta agonist / bronchodilator : This medication can prevent symptoms when taken 10 to 15 minutes before exercise. It will help prevent symptoms for up to four hours. This same medication can also treat and reverse the symptoms of EIB should they occur.
• Long-acting bronchodilator: This needs to be taken 30 to 60 minutes before activity and only once within a 12-hour period. Salmeterol can help prevent EIB symptoms for 10 to 12 hours. This medication is for preventing symptoms. It does not offer any quick relief, so it not for treating symptoms once they begin.
• Mast cell stabilizers: Cromolyn sodium or nedocromil sodium need to be taken 15 to 20 minutes before exercise. These medications may also help to prevent the late phase reaction of EIB that some people experience. These medications are only for preventing EIB because they do not relieve symptoms once they begin. Some individuals use one of these medicines in combination with a short-acting bronchodilator.

If you have frequent symptoms with usual activity or exercise, talk to your doctor. An increase in your long-term control medications may help. Long-term control medicines, such as inhaled steroids, can help EIB.

If My Child No Longer Has Asthma Symptoms Could It Be That They Were Misdiagnosed With The Disease

Perhaps. Rachelefsky says a lot of children diagnosed with asthma donât have it and many asthmatics go undiagnosed.

âSpirometry is standard, but many physicians in primary care practices donât have a spirometer. They diagnose sinusitis as asthma and mistake asthma for esophageal reflux,â he says.

But for children under the age of 2, it is difficult to do spirometry to test for asthma. When a child is that young, providing a diagnosis âis an imperfect science,â says Reynolds J. Panettieri Jr., a pulmonologist with the University of Pennsylvania.

âIf you have true asthma, you donât outgrow it,â so young children who are wheezing from a viral infection that hangs around for a long time may not have asthma but âtwitchyâ or hypersensitive airways that are a holdover from the virus, he says.

Johnson says, even if a child is too young for standard testing, âItâs better to err on the side of caution and treat kids whether they have asthma or not. The benefits are great,â he says.

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Minimising Your Risk Of An Attack

It may seem obvious, but the best way to decrease your chance of an asthma attack is to use your medicines if you start having symptoms.

“If you no longer take medicines because you have ‘grown out’ of asthma, but notice symptoms such as breathlessness, coughing at night, a tight chest or wheezing flaring up, make sure you see your doctor to discuss whether you might need to go back on asthma medicines again,” urges Whittamore.

“Your preventer inhaler reduces the inflammation in your sensitive airways over time so you are less likely to react if you come into contact with an asthma trigger, reducing your chance of having an asthma attack or flare-up,” he explains.

Common asthma symptoms include shortness of breath, a tight chest and wheezing. All can put you at risk of a life-threatening asthma attack.

Depending on the severity of your asthma, treatment usually goes as follows:

“The most basic treatment calls for a reliever inhaler to be used as symptoms appear. When the reliever inhaler is used more than twice a week, it is recommended to move the treatment to step two,” says Antalffy.

“Step two calls for a preventer inhaler, usually used twice a day regardless of symptoms, in addition to the reliever inhaler on standby.”

If your asthma is still poorly controlled after these measures, sometimes a third drug will be prescribed alongside inhalers.

Attitudes And Counseling Related To Weight Loss

Ford et al have, based on data from the Behavioural Risk Factor Surveillance System, reported that 27.3% out of 13,953 participants with current asthma had a BMI of 30, and that 72.9% of the obese participants with asthma reported trying to lose weight. Furthermore, 82.9% of obese participants receiving weight-loss advice reported trying to lose weight, compared to 63.8% among obese participants who had not received such advice. This study, therefore, illustrates, although so far not supported by other studies, the important role for health care professionals in educating their patients with asthma about the importance of weight control, and in assisting and supporting their overweight and obese patients with asthma in setting achievable weight goals.

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Half Of Kids With Severe Asthma May Grow Out Of It

University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s

Fully half of children and adolescents being treated for severe asthma will improve over a three-year period, according to a new 11-institution longitudinal study of children and teens ages 6 to 17 being treated for severe asthma. This major finding provides evidence for the idea that some of these patients can outgrow their severe asthma while on proper treatment.

It is good news, says Kristie Ross, MD, Division Chief of Pediatric Pulmonology at UH Rainbow Babies & Childrens Hospital and lead author of the study.

Many children who have severe asthma during earlier childhood seem to improve during adolescence, she says. We know these patients did well even though their level of controller therapies decreased over time. Its reassuring to know that decreasing the dose of controller medicines can be safely done with close monitoring.

Although severe asthma affects approximately 4 percent to 5 percent of children with asthma, it accounts for a disproportionate fraction of the morbidity, mortality and cost of asthma.

A Predictor Of Improvement

One factor did, however, predict patients asthma improvement status: eosinophil count. Eosinophils are a type of white blood cell that become active when you have allergic disease, infections and other medical conditions.

Children in the study with a peripheral eosinophil count of greater than 436 cells/ML were 2.75 times more likely to have their severe asthma resolve than were patients with an eosinophil count below that number.

This was not that surprising, Dr. Ross says, given what is known about the differences between severe asthma in the pediatric and adult populations.

A substantial majority of kids with asthma and with severe asthma have an allergic phenotype, she says. They’re sensitized, depending on the environment, to things like pets, trees, grasses and so they have a high eosinophil count. Upwards of 80 percent of kids who we enroll in asthma clinical research have evidence of allergy, whereas in adults, that phenotype is less common.

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Millions At Risk Of Deadly Asthma Attacks Just From Having Sex Experts Warn

SEX can trigger asthma attacks, a study found.

A big effort in the bedroom can bring on breathing problems for sufferers around 5.4million Brits.

Exercise is a well-known risk but scientists at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology said rumpy pumpy may be underestimated.

Dr Ariel Leung said: Many people dont realise that the energy expenditure of sexual activity is about equivalent to walking up two flights of stairs.

Reported cases are infrequent, possibly because those suffering an asthma flare may not realise the trigger.

Can You Have Asthma And Copd Together

Some people have asthma with COPD, which is a condition doctors call asthma-COPD overlap . Researchers dont yet know why this occurs. It may develop because long-term COPD changes how the lungs work, making a person more susceptible to asthma. ACO is more serious than either asthma or COPD alone, so getting diagnosed and treated is essential.

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Can You Really Outgrow Asthma

The answer is complicated. Learn what the experts say, and what you can do to help prevent symptoms for good.

Coughing, wheezing, trouble breathing, fear of an attack. If youre among the 25 million Americans living with asthma about 1 in 13 people youre familiar with these symptoms. You also probably know theres no cure for asthma.

Still, many people have stretches of time when asthma symptoms disappear. And youve probably heard about kids with asthma whose symptoms also seem to stop altogether. Did their asthma go away? Can some people truly outgrow it?

The answer is yes, but it is more complicated than a simple yes, says Neil Schachter, MD. Dr. Schachter is a lung specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and author of The Good Doctors Guide to Colds and Flu. Heres the scoop on how asthma can change over time. Plus, find ways to keep your asthma under control if you havent outgrown it.

How Is Eia Treated

If you have exercise-induced asthma, your doctor might want you to take asthma medicine before being really active. This is often the same quick-relief medicine used for flare-ups. You breathe the medicine directly into your lungs before exercising and it works immediately to open up the airways. Doctors sometimes call this pretreatment.

If pretreatment isnt enough, your doctor may recommend that you also take daily long-term control medicine. This works over time to help keep the airways open. You need to take it every day, even when you feel well.

Many people find that if they take medicine as prescribed by their doctors, they can work out with few or no problems.

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When To See Your Doctor

Note that severe asthma attacks can turn deadly. So, if you notice any of the symptoms like shortness of breath, wheezing, tight chest, or coughing at night, be sure to see your healthcare provider and discuss if you are required to start your medications again. Also, its best to understand when to seek emergency treatment.

Apart from this, its best to see your doctor when:

• You suspect to have asthma:

If you are experiencing frequent wheezing, trouble in breathing, or any other signs of asthma, dont ignore it. Remember, early treatment will not only control your condition from getting worse but will also prevent long-term lung damage.

• To monitor asthma regularly

If youve already been diagnosed with asthma, its recommended to work with your doctor and prepare an asthma management plan to keep it under control.

• To review your condition or treatment:

Asthmatic conditions may change over time. So, its good to be in touch with your doctor to discuss your symptoms and your current condition. This will allow them to make any treatment adjustments if necessary.

Whats The Difference Between Asthma And Exercise

The symptoms of both conditions are the same: chest tightness, shortness of breath, wheezing, fatigue or episodes of coughing.

In asthma sufferers, these symptoms have many triggers, such as allergens, weather or temperature changes, and irritants like smoke, fumes and pollution.

When symptoms are triggered by exercise, its called exercise-induced asthma.

You can be diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma without a diagnosis of asthma about 10 percent of the general population experiences asthma symptoms only during exercise, without having underlying asthma.

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Asthma Triggers Can Change Over Time

This often happens with age. In kids, allergies are among the most common triggers, says Dr. Schachter. So are exercise, weather, and exposure to respiratory infections. We tend to see asthma flares in the fall, when children go back to school and are exposed to viruses as well as outdoor fall allergens, he points out.

In adults, allergies play less of a role. Instead, their asthma is triggered more often by irritants such as cigarette smoke, perfume, cleaning products, or even air pollution. Its important to learn what your asthma triggers are so you can avoid them.

You can record triggers in an asthma diary and share the diary with your doctor, who can help you make a plan for steering clear of your triggers. When you can avoid your triggers, you can reduce the severity and frequency of your asthma symptoms.

Check The Climate And Atmosphere:

Extreme temperatures, contamination, allergens and dry air can really have an impact on your asthma. In order to reduce the effect of your asthma, it is recommended to not undertake exercises in dry, cold and dusty atmospheres.

Furthermore, it is important to note that in the colder months, you should definitely take more precaution, due to the cold dry air which can trigger asthma attacks

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Vicks Warm Mist Humidifier

The Vicks Warm mist humidifier has several features that help eliminate bacteria and allergens in the air. When used carefully, it releases 95% clean mist into the air to help cure coughs, cold and dryness. It has a cup that can hold liquid inhalants. Steam inhalants such as Vicks Vapo steam can help hasten the action of released steam to decongest blocked throats and relieve coughs.

Also, the humidifier comes with a patented Protec Cleaning ball that can help rid bacteria in your water tank. Simply drop a ball in your tank and enjoy fresh mist for longer hours.

The humidifier is also filter-free, and so eliminates the need for quarterly filter replacement. It is whisper-quiet so it doesnt disturb your baby at night in the nursery.

The humidifier tank has a capacity of 1 gallon and can run continuously for at least 12 hours before refill. It is translucent so you can easily see the water level.

Lastly, the display at the front of the humidifier is quite large so you can easily view temperature and humidity levels.