As a baby, Sarah had major digestive system issues & some food allergy troubles. At 12 months, she had pneumonia. When she was about 18 months old, we learned that she was allergic to one of the most widely prescribed antibiotics (penicillin). We have a family history of allergies to another antibiotic (cephlasporins) and there was another one that had never been effective when we tried it (can't think of the name of it, but it's the drug in Z-packs). That means we were down to 1 antibiotic that worked for her (Sulfa drugs), and she was getting sick often enough that we were worried about her building up an immunity to that one. The pediatrician suggested we get tubes put in her ears to take away one of our biggest problems (ear infections). We went to an ENT & 3 days later, she was getting tubes put in. It was remarkable how much of a difference they made, not only in the ear infections end of things, but to her speech as well. At the time of her surgery, she only spoke about 3-4 words. Within a week after surgery, she was talking in full sentences. We realized that she must've been having trouble hearing & we never even knew it!!! During all this time, she had developed Reactive Airway Disorder (the new politically correct way of saying allergy-induced asthma).
One of our friends from the church we were at then is a Pediatric Allergy & Immunology specialist, so we went for a visit to try to learn what it is she's allergic to and to get the asthma stuff figured out. We've been seeing him ever since & today was her check up.
She did the computerized breathing test & came back showing AWESOME results on that. They measure lung capacity & strength & she got a "100%" score on both. He asked us lots of questions about her breathing & allergy symptoms and he decided that she's doing so well we can now ditch the nebulizer treatments when she has problems. He prescribed 2 types of inhalers (one is a steroid treatment for preventative treatment when she's having cold/allergy symptoms to ward off it turning into asthma problems) and the other is a fast-acting rescue inhaler for times when she's in a full blown asthma attack. He also gave us a stronger steroid for times of extreme emergency -- when the rescue inhaler doesn't cut it after several puffs. In those instances, you give a dose of the stonger steroid & go to the ER!
Protocol states that asthma patients have a check up every 6 months, but our doc said she's doing so well that he feels comfortable waiting til next summer to see her again unless something changes between now & then.
WooHoo! I'm so glad!
1 comment:
great news:)
Deb
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