My Child Has Asthma - Now What?
By Debbie Davis
Having your child diagnosed with asthma can be pretty scary. But with the right approach and a good solid understanding of how to deal with it, you can help your child lead a full, happy and healthy life without having childhood asthma cast a cloud over it. Here are 7 fairly simple ideas to help you get started with helping your child deal with asthma.
1. Schedule Regular Check Ups. Once the initial diagnosis has been made, tests are done and prescriptions are issued expect to continue to visit the doctor periodically. Asthma in children changes more often because of their rapid growth. Make your child aware that these periodic checkups are routine, will happen regularly, and are not a cause for concern or worry. They should be seen as an opportunity to make improvement to the management plan for even better results.
2. Teach your child about the inhalers. If your child has been given a preventative inhaler, it will be important for them to get use to using it at specific times. And if they have also been given an inhaler to relieve symptoms should they occur, they will need to understand the difference and be able to visually distinguish one from the other. Let your child be creative and put stickers or labels on them to facilitate easy usage. Designate a place and always keep them there so in an emergency, they can get to it without delay.
3. Encourage trust. Childhood asthma requires both you and your child to have complete trust and openness between each other. It will be critical to your child's welfare and confidence that he or she knows that at any time they can speak to you about any concerns or worries that they may have. Try to make sure that if they want to talk, you give them time and attention, whatever else might be happening at the time. In order to help your child cope with asthma they need to know you're going to be there when they need to talk to you about it.
4. Establish a routine. Many children are provided with an inhaler that is designed to minimize the likelihood of asthma occurring, and is usually referred to as the preventative inhaler. If your child has one of these then it will be important to try to establish a routine for your child, so that they remember to use it each day. Help them remember to do this by combining it with a routine that is already established. A good one to choose is brushing their teeth. Not only is this an easy routine to remember, but since the powder in most inhalers can cause erosion of tooth enamel, cleaning teeth after using an inhaler is a good idea.
5. Educate others. The keyword here is 'educate'. Talk about the asthma with brothers and sisters, parents of your child's friends, teachers and other school personnel, and any other adults that serve as caregivers for your child. Make them aware of emergency procedures, and make sure they have the most up to date contact and emergency numbers.
6. Discourage the word 'can't'. Asthmatics have climbed mountains, run marathons and competed in the Olympics. Asthma is a condition not a disability. The symptoms can be controlled, and although there may be times when common sense must prevail, many situations will allow a child to take part. In order to help your child cope with asthma, try to help them see it not so much as coping with childhood asthma as living with it.
7. Use a HEPA purifier to filter the air. Normal household pollutants and particulates can also serve as triggers including dust, dust mites, pet dander, and mold and mildew spores. A high efficiency particle arresting air purifier can remove these irritants down to .3 microns in size with 99.97% efficiency. Breathing fresh clean air that the purifier makes possible adds another layer of protection for your child, and increases their chances of effectively coping with childhood asthma.
An excellent HEPA air purifier to remove asthma triggers from your child's air is offered by PurerAir.com - the Baby's Breath Purifier See it now at http://purerair.com/babys_breath.html
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