My 26-Year-Old Daughter Suffers From Chronic Silent Chest Asthma
Hi - my daughter who's 26 now has been an asthmatic since she was a baby. For years she's suffered from asthma and when she was young she had the wheeze. As she got older her asthma hasn't changed much except she stopped wheezing.
Getting the right asthma treatment
She's done hospital stints in oxygen tents as a child. We had spent many ambulance trips to the hospital and some really scary times that she's almost been inner tubed because they can't get her asthma under control. She has puffers, done steroids stints, done overnight stays but this silent chest asthma is not very well known, even throughout the normal medical profession.
It's taken us 24 years to get someone to help us control her asthma. I've taken her to many specialists here in Victoria Australia and, at last, we finally found a specialist that is finally getting this under control. He first did a detailed allergy blood test and the results came back that she's allergic to grass grains. This is one trigger that causes an attack. She takes a wafer she puts under her tongue for this daily to control the allergy.
Silent asthma chest
She's been diagnosed with silent asthma chest. Silent asthma is silent obstruction of the airways that the airways are so obstructed that the sufferer can't even wheeze. It's also very dangerous, as because she doesn't wheeze people don't realize just how dangerous it is.
The last time she was taken to the hospital she was given a combined amount of 120 puffs of Ventolin and Atrovent in a 6hr stay. They finally got it under control - thank god. It's the middle of spring here so this time of year through to late summer is her most dangerous time for her to have an attack.
Working towards better asthma control
We've had some scares of nearly having to go to hospital but have managed to get her silent chest asthma under control. So far it's been 3 months and no emergency trips to the hospital. That's a record for us! She so exhausted nearly every day because she's working so hard to breathe, but it's so much better than it was. Hopefully, one day will get this totally under control.
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