What Happens During an Asthma Attack

What Happens During an Asthma Attack Dr. Travis Stork: These problems, asthma allergies, so very common. Dr. Jim Sears: Very common. I mean, 20 million Americans suffer from asthma and it is even worst in kids. It’s the leading chronic illness in kids. 9 million kids in US suffer from asthma. Dr. Travis Stork: I grew up suffering from asthma and I’m going to tell you right now when you have an asthma attack, if you look here, I want everyone to pretend that this is an airway. What happens when you have an asthma attack is inflammation, swelling of those airways. Literally, the airways get clogged with inflammation. They get swollen, constricted and that’s why you hear the wheezing because air is traveling to a smaller space and of course this is whip cream, so if you have whip cream in your airways, that’s a whole another problem. Dr. Jim Sears: People with asthma got a lot of mucous in their airways and it’s not too far often that. If it’s a severe asthma attack, you can usually recognize that but what you don’t want to do is ignore the subtle signs of chronic asthma, things like a chronic cough recurring chest colds. If every time your child gets a cold that always goes to their chest. They’re getting bronchitis and that with the wheezing. That’s when you want to say “Hey, this might be asthma.” And what you do want to do is work with your pediatrician to make sure you have a good treatment plan for your child’s asthma. You know 90% of kids with asthma don’t have a written down treatment plan. It is so important because having that it’s simply just a piece of paper that you and your pediatrician will fill out. It says when you have these symptoms this is what you do. If it’s just wheezing you do this. If it’s more then you do this and that way you’ll know -- it takes the gas work out of it, take this. Dr. Lisa Masterson: Prepare for emergency. Dr. Travis Stork: You can actually stave off the emergency that’s why it’s so important. Dr. Jim Sears: You can stay out of the ER that way. Dr. Travis Stork: You can stay out of the ER absolutely. Dr. Jim Sears: You make copies of this plan and the school has one, you have one, the nurse has one, the babysitter has one and -- Dr. Travis Stork: The cool products for kids too. Dr. Jim Sears: Yeah, really cool products. Sometimes when you’re in the doctor’s office or at home doing that nebulizer, that inhaler, it can kind of be scary but there’s a kind of cool thing. A lot of kids like this. I have actually this in my office. They have a little cool shape, the mask looks like a little fishy or trains or cars, animal shapes it’s kind of cool and the medicine just kind of hooks up in there. And what a nebulizer does, it takes that liquid asthma inhaler. It turns it into a mist so the child can breath it over a few minutes and it kind of go -- it’s the most effective quick treatment for asthma. It opens up their lungs really quickly.