Curing Children Asthma

Searching for a cure for your child's asthma at times seems like a search for the Holy Grail. Just when you think you have it, either it doesn't work or there is some other downside.

Childhood asthma can be cured, or at least, suppressed to the point where it has little or no affect on the sufferer. This seems to be the goal that we should realistically aim for. There are many medications available to help control asthma in children, so it can be very manageable for most of them. This, coupled with a daily regime and lifestyle that avoids asthma triggers, and enhances natural resistance, means that they can live an almost asthma free life. The most common medications are administered through inhalers, which can be either preventers or relievers.

Asthma can be triggered by many factors like allergens or irritants caused by weather conditions, food varieties, drug intake and pretty much anything that could be breathed in, even perfumes. Asthma can be triggered by other allergy attacks, for example the onset of the Hay fever season. Attacks can be prevented by avoiding triggering factors and by 'preventer' treatment.

There are a lot of alternative treatments for asthma, but because they have not been clinically tested we cannot be sure of their effectiveness. Because a lot are marketed by start up organisations or individuals, there is a credibility gap that needs to be overcome.

We have read that asthma can be classified into two main types: extrinsic, in which attacks are triggered by an allergy, and intrinsic, in which there is no obvious external cause for attacks. Fortunately in our child's case her asthma is dominantly extrinsic or 'allergic' asthma, so we have had some success in identifying the more persistent causes and simply masking them from her.

Some people find their asthma attacks are linked to certain foods. Dairy products, eggs, chocolate, wheat, corn, citrus fruits and sea food are the most frequent food triggers. Anyone experiencing asthma that they feel may be food related should contact their GP to help pinpoint the problem foods.

Certain foods may promote inflammation in the body, which can contribute to asthma and other allergic conditions such as eczema. Some of the foods which may do this are what are known as the omega-6 fatty acids, typically found in margarine and vegetable oils. Omega-3 type fats that are typically found in oily fish appear to have the opposite affect and reduce inflammation in the body. Before we started feeding our child with huge quantities of salmon, trout, tuna, mackerel and herring we realized diet wasn't an issue with her asthma.

Other common substances which seem to provoke asthma like food colouring and preservatives in processed foods also appear to have no significant affect on her.

Curing asthma with traditional remedies and natural cures does not inflict any adverse side effects on the patient. A holistic approach, blended with an amiable and balanced mix of prescribed medication will also relieve them from any further difficulty in breathing. So the conclusion is that, although there are natural remedies that can reduce the effects of asthma, there is still no outright cure. So a regime of reducing risk by controlling the exposure to aggravating elements is a sound course of action. Coupled with a regime of medication that suppresses the symptoms to the point where they no longer affect the child and the people who care about them.

In my child's case where we tried homeopathic solutions, they were not particularly effective. But her current treatment is working: find out more by going to http://www.assmatics.co.uk.

Andrew W Coyle is the father of two children who suffered from asthma and eczema during early childhood. With wife Rachel he spent a lot of time and money trying to find a cure that would allow his children to lead a normal life.
Read more at http://www.assmatics.co.uk.

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Can You Outgrow Children Asthma?

Parents are usually the ones who are greatly affected, when they see their child having an asthma attack. It bothers them so much especially when they can do nothing but comfort their child. It is certainly very painful for any parent to see their child suffering. The question 'Do children grow out of asthma?' is often asked by parents to their child's physician. They would want to know how long the disease will inflict pain and burden to their child. Every parent wants nothing but the best for their child and for that very reason, they would like to know if there is a good chance of outgrowing asthma.

It has been greatly debated if children will outgrow asthma. Many opinions and speculations have surfaced regarding the matter. Most doctors are very positive that there is a big chance of outgrowing asthma especially if it developed during childhood years. Children who developed the condition from an early age have greater chances of outgrowing it as compared to those who have acquired it later in life.

A study once stated that only 2% of asthmatic children carry it on to adulthood and usually those who do have severe cases. Asthma is a disease resulted from numerous factors. It will be hard to tell whether a child would outgrow the disease without tracing its root cause first. The etiology of the development of your child's asthma will greatly affect the possibility for them to outgrow it.

Many children who have asthma came from a family of asthmatics. Genetics has been closely linked to childhood asthma since it has been noted that heredity greatly influences the child's predisposition to the condition. But aside from heredity there are other factors associated to its development. It doesn't mean that a child who didn't come from an asthmatic family is exempted on its development, truth is they still can.

Other children with asthma may have acquired it from constant exposure to allergens. Allergy has been known to be a factor in developing asthma. A child who has allergies especially those which are related to the respiratory system like sinusitis and rhinitis are at risk of acquiring it. Inflammation is the main cause of an asthma attack. The airways are usually inflamed due to irritation caused by certain triggering factors.

Perhaps, a well managed and controlled child asthma will lead to improvements and chances are its symptoms might disappear as your child grows. Once your child learned to properly manage an asthma attack, they will most likely outgrow it. Supplying a definite answer to the question "Do children grow out of asthma?" is quite impossible since you cannot predict who will grow out of it and who will not. Everything will just come down to how you carried out your child's asthma management through their growing years.

It simply means that the possibility of your child outgrowing asthma is relatively dependent on proper application of its management. The chance of your child outgrowing asthma relies on compliance and management of the disease. Child asthma have a very broad etiology, every attack differs from one child to the other. The chances of outgrowing asthma may be dependent to its severity and how it is being managed over the years.

Read More on How to Cure Your Child's Asthma

These are the asthma "secrets" that doctor's won't tell you! controlling-asthma.info

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Effective Methods To Manage Children Asthma

Having childhood asthma is difficult, and helping your child cope can be overwhelming, especially if you are gathering information for the first time. But with the help of your pediatrician and applying some basic strategies and principles, you can help your child to live in a positive and safe way. Here are seven basic steps that will help your child cope with asthma.

1. Know the difference between inhalers. Not all children will need to have two inhalers, but many do. One of these will be preventative, taken every day at regular intervals, while the other is for relieving the symptoms should they occur. Knowing which inhaler is which is important in helping to keep the asthma controlled. Help your child mark the inhalers in some way. Perhaps using coloured stickers, or wrapping a label around it so that they can draw or write on it. This will act as a helpful visual reminder, as well as personalizing their inhalers. Just be careful that any decoration doesn't affect or cover the air holes or intake vents.

2. Create a routine. If your child needs to take a preventative inhaler each day, then this will need to be established as a routine or piggy back onto other routines that are already in place. For example, if they need to use their inhaler in the morning and again at night, combine this with brushing their teeth. This is a good idea anyway since some substances used in many inhalers can damage teeth, so brushing afterwards is a good idea.

3. Help siblings understand. Be careful not to fuss over your asthmatic child too much. This is not healthy for the child with asthma and can increase sibling rivalry. Well children may begin to feel less loved and not as valued or important as the asthmatic child. Avoid this by not only spending time helping others in the family understand what having asthma is like, but planning one on one activities with your other children as well. Siblings are more likely to show empathy if they feel their place in the family is secure, and know more about what having asthma is about.

4. Make sure asthma is a subject of honesty. Childhood asthma is serious, as is asthma at any age, and it is crucial that your child knows that they can always talk to you. Try to work with your child to create a sense of trust so that they know they can bring it up concerns at any time. It could save their life.

5. Arrange regular checkups. Asthma doesn't tend to remain static. It may sometimes appear to be getting better, while other times appear to be worsening. Many aspects will tend to affect the severity, and so it is especially important to make sure that your child has regular checkups with the doctor to assess the current situation. This can result in a change in prescription or other recommendations.

6. Be Positive and Encouraging. Help your child avoid using asthma as an excuse to get out of certain activities. Encourage them to identify ways of dealing with the condition positively rather than avoiding it. Certain triggers at school can easily be avoided, such as sitting next to a dusty blackboard, or staying indoors on days when outside conditions are unhealthy. Help them define physical activities that they can enjoy and still keep the asthma contolled. Helping your child cope with childhood asthma should be about common sense, understanding and strength.

7. Minimize triggers. There are many causes for asthma flare ups. Use a high efficiency particle arresting or HEPA air purifier to eliminate triggers such as airborne pet dander, dust, dust mites, mold and mildew spores, pollen, smoke, and odors to keep indoor air quality as healthy as possible. Removing these irritants from the air will make a real difference in how effectively your child is able to cope with 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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Is Your Child's Playground Causing Their Children Asthma

It is a sunny day and you decide to take your child to the playground. The kids are having fun on the swings or just running around the park. Some of the kids are playing with the birds that are flocking around the bread that they are feeding the birds. Everyone is having lots of fun and then you go home. Everybody is happy including the well fed birds. You are happy, your child did not have an allergy or asthma episode while in the park from the trees and grasses.

That night your child starts coughing and you do not think anything about it. Give them a little cough syrup and they go back to sleep. You think it is just another allergic attack or their asthma is acting up again. The next day he or she is worse, so you decide to make an appointment with the Doctor. You take them to the Doctor and they decide to run some tests to see what is going on. One Doctor says it is an allergy attack. Another says it is their Asthma acting up. This scenario goes on for weeks with other Physicians and no one can diagnose your child. They give them antibiotics for ten days and still it does not go away. You are getting worried about your child because of their compromised immune system due to their Asthma and Allergies. You start to think that all Doctors are quacks by this point in time.

In the mean time, your child is getting even worse, you do not know what to do at 2 AM, so you go to the Emergency Room at the local hospital. Tonight is your child's lucky nite, you get a real Doctor who has a lot of real experience with exotic illnesses. First he asks questions about what was your child doing before they got sick. You tell him that your little boy was in the park playing with the birds with the other children. The Doctor asks more questions and decides to run a battery of tests that the other Physicians did not. He also wants to run a test called Serology. This is a blood test that examines blood for antigens and antibodies. Finally, you feel relieved that this Physician knows what they are doing. The lab tests come back, your child has been exposed to Histoplasma.

Now the treatment begins.

Histoplasma, what is that you ask.

According to Wikipedia: Histoplasmosis, also known as Darling's disease,is a disease caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. Symptoms of this infection vary greatly, but the disease primarily affects the lungs. Occasionally, other organs are affected; this is called disseminated histoplasmosis, and it can be fatal if untreated. Histoplasmosis is common among AIDS patients because of their lowered immune system. This type of infection is especially dangerous for someone with a compromised immune system. It can be found in soil and material contaminated with bird or bat droppings. It is especially common among pigeons and where they hang out in parks and building roofs.

I inspected an office building in Boca Raton, Fl. once because the occupants were all having flu like symptoms on a regular basis. There was no mold or allergens, but a test of bird droppings in the fresh air vent (there was a pigeon nest in it) to the building tested positive for histoplasma capsulatum. We informed the owner of the building, it was cleaned up, then all the problems with the building stopped after that.

Remember, it is not always mold causing the problem.

In conclusion, keep your child away from pigeons and where they nest. Do not feed the pigeons, because a large group will descend upon your area and the spores of the Histoplasma may be on the pigeons. Breathing in the spores can infect your lungs, so avoid pigeons. If you are concerned about Histoplasmosis, the Center For Disease Control and the New York City CDC both have an extensive library on the topic. If you feel you or your child have been exposed to Histoplasmosis, contact your Physician immediately.

If you have any questions, feel free to call us or visit our website for more information on environmental issues..

To learn more about your home, visit our website at http://www.safe-homes.com/ or http://www.air-testing.com/ Visit our website for a Free Report on Indoor Air Quality.

Mr. Art Emiss is available as a professional speaker to help educate your community or group function on Asthma, Allergies, Indoor Air Quality and the Chemically Injured.

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Important Steps To Take During A Children Asthma Attack

First, use asthma medication correctly. Medication only works if taken at the right times and in the right amounts. If your child has had an attack after taking medication he may have lost faith in it. Help him by cultivating a routine in which he takes his preventive medication, if prescribed, just before he brushes his teeth.

Relievers, the drugs that alleviate asthmatic symptoms, also need to be used properly. They should be accessible to your child at all times and he needs to understand that he should turn to them as his first, rather than a last resort. It is also important not to overuse or abuse relievers and to watch his response carefully. If it is poor or lasts less than four hours, seek medical help without delay.

Second, know when to get medical help. However, efficiently you both manage to control your child's asthma there will probably still be times when he needs medical attention. While it is important not to show fear to your child, you may become worse if you do, or to overreact to his symptoms, it is essential to heed warning signs and to act promptly.

If your child has been hospitalized before, he may try to avoid it happening again, and so conceal the seriousness of the attack, but you must be objective. If his usual medication has not given any significant relief at the start of an attack, it is not likely to do so later. It is vital that your child's medication should be accessible at all times, but if he does come into contact with triggers that have caused an attack before and does not have his medication with him, contact your doctor straight away.

Plan ahead. If you receive a telephone call from your child's school to say he is unwell from asthma, telephone your doctor's surgery before you leave to collect him. Do not be afraid to insist that your child needs immediate attention; a child having an asthma attack is a priority.

Third, pass on information. As your child grows up, he will gradually become more independent and start to take more responsibility for his condition. The more he knows and the more confident he feels, the easier this will be.

It is more difficult for a child to make himself heard than it is for an adult, but he will stand a much better chance if it is apparent that he understands his asthma and knows what needs to be done. But take care not to alarm your child; your aim is to educate him about his asthma without making him afraid of his condition.

To learn more about Asthma, Asthma Treatment, and Asthma Symptoms facts, make sure to visit http://www.asthmatreatmentsecrets.com/Ask-for-allergy-tests.html where you will find a complete guide on Asthma, Asthma Treatment, and Asthma Symptoms available for free...

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