Asthma Clinic

Our next Asthma Clinic will be on Friday, May 15th.

This is the perfect day to schedule a visit with us to plan for a Summer free of wheezing.

Starting on Friday, February 6th, Renaissance will begin its quarterly Asthma Clinic. Children will be scheduled to see their provider of choice at 2pm for an Asthma Checkup. Afterwards, they will have the opportunity to take part in a 30 minute group Asthma Teaching Session. During these sessions, they can learn how to use their medicines more effectively and see how other children are dealing with Asthma.

Having an Asthma Clinic is more fun for children because they get to interact outside the examination room and learn about Asthma at the same time. Our hope is to provide an environment where children can receive the best care and families can have all of their questions answered, even the questions they may not have thought of.

I think we’re all rather comfortable with first-hand and second-hand smoke, but perhaps it would be helpful to understand why even smoking outside won’t protect children from the harmful effects of cigarettes. This is especially true for kids with Asthma. A recent report on ABC News Online tells more. Click Here.

This link from the American Academy of Allergies, Asthma, and Immunology is helpful this time of year.

http://www.aaaai.org/patients/elements/1108/elements_1108.pdf

The medicine in your asthma inhaler is not changing. It’s the substance used to push the medicine out of the inhaler that is changing. In the past, most current metered-dose inhalers (MDIs) use CFCs. CFCs are safe for patients to inhale, but they are harmful to the environment. Replacing the CFCs in your MDI with another substance called hydrofluoroalkane (HFA) will make the environment safer for everyone.

After switching to a HFA-based inhaler, you will notice that it has many similarities to the CFC-based inhalers, but there are also a few differences:

Similarities of HFA and CFC inhalers	New HFA inhaler
Same medicine in the inhaler	Ozone-friendly to the environment
Shape is similar	Might be slightly different in smell and taste
Size is similar	Mist is less forceful and warmer, but the medicine is the same
Convenient to use	May need to be cleaned and cared for differently (These devices should not get wet, don’t use the float test!)

Adapted from American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.

This is a link to a list of indoor asthma triggers and ways to minimize their effects.

http://www.epa.gov/asthma/pdfs/10_steps_en.pdf

If you’re web-savvy enough to check out this blog, you may also be interested in more information from outside sources. I’ll try to keep these coming on a regular basis. Here’s one to start out with:

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Asthma/Asthma_WhatIs.html