This week in Ed Psych the class topic asthma came up a few times. This is something I can relate to. I was diagnosed with acute physically induced asthma when I was younger, about seven if I remember. I remember at school I had to go to the nurses office in the afternoon and take an inhaler that sounded like a train if I sucked in too hard. As I got older, the less I went to the doctor and eventually I stopped taking my inhaler and frankly forgot about it. It never really bothered me again until I was about 15. I mean it bothered me, I would get winded in P.E. and when doing physical activities, but I just associated it with being out of shape. Then when I was 15 my brother moved down to Kansas City. There my mom and I would visit for a week at a time about once a month. While down there he adopted a dog, I’m allergic to dogs. I would get itchy red eyes and hives, but nothing too bad. While visiting I would sleep on an air mattress, and wake up in the morning with the worst chest pain ever. It felt like someone was constantly sitting on my chest, and when I would breath in it was very shallow. It got so bad that when we stayed the night, I would stop breathing in my sleep and suddenly wake up gasping for air, a couple times this sent me into an anxiety attack. This scared my mom, so she took me to an allergist.
At the allergist I took multiple tests for weeks, and eventually learned most of what I am allergic to. I was allergic the dogs, cats, dust, christmas trees and much more. It got all the way down to I’m allergic to almost everything pollen related, and I’m lactose intolerant. And to top off the crap cake, I had full blown physically induced, cold induced, and allergy induced asthma. Of course out of everything that someone can suck at doing, I suck at breathing. After learning everything, it was time to take action. I started with singulair, a pill I take at night before bed, and two inhalers, one I take twice a day, and one for emergencies. Over the years my body got used to most of the medicine they were giving me. So now days I am down to two inhalers and over the counter allergy pills I take when allergies bother me. After almost 5 years of living with it, I’ve got my routine down pat. If I know I’m going somewhere that has a dog, or something I'm allergic to, I will start taking my inhaler twice a day, two days before I go there, twice a day while I’m there, and pills at about 10 AM everyday I’m there. Doing this I usually don’t have to use my emergency inhaler, unless one of the animals licks my face, then I’m just screwed. Besides asthma bothering me when I'm around allergens, it usually only bothers me when it's cold and I have to walk up the hill from my dorm, but I avoid that by driving to class, ha.
A few class periods ago we talked about the benefits of breastfeeding and what can happen if you don’t breastfeed. Asthma and allergies were two of the things that could be more severe if the child is not breastfed. Being adopted, I wasn’t, so now I am left to wonder if I would have such issues if I had been breastfed. From the little medical records I have on my birth mother, I know that she had issues with allergies, and she had acute asthma. I can’t help but think about what would be different if I was fed naturally, maybe I wouldn’t have asthma or allergies, or at least they wouldn’t have been so bad. From my life experience, if breastfeeding gives my child the slightest chance at not having as server allergies as me, I’m going to take it. I wouldn’t wish this annoyance on anyone.
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