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Triggers and Allergies
Eventually said we wouldn't visit if there was smoke in the house Up until her junior high years, winters were really tough for Addison and her asthma. Going to visit my father was hard because he smoked, and Addison would just react to that cigarette smoke. My father is a tough cookie, and even though Addison couldn't handle the smoke, my dad said that it was his house he would smoke if he wanted to. It was especially hard to go visit him during the winter because it would take her days to get over a couple hours visit because of the cigarette smoke in the house. I eventually made the decision that she couldn't be there while he was smoking. My dad did stop smoking in the home, but he'd smoke outside, and he leaves the door open while he smokes. Jordan might find it difficult because both my parents smoke, and they live upstairs from me. He likes to go upstairs and be with my parents, but when he comes down, he stinks of cigarettes and I am always after him about his breathing, asking him if his breathing is ok, or asking if he is wheezing. I have tried with my parents to ask them not to smoke in the same room as Jordan, but in the long run, the smoke is everywhere even though they may not smoke in the same room where he is sitting.I smoke, but not around my daughter I do smoke, but I don't smoke around Mya. I don't smoke in the same room with her—I'll step outside and have a cigarette. We are doing house remodeling and it is my belief that the smell of paint triggered an attack for Caleb. So we were doing remodeling on Saturday and as much as I tried to keep him out he is a kid he wanted to help and be where the people were. Saturday he was fine, and then Saturday night he was coughing all night. And on Sunday he was miserable and then Sunday night I gave him a treatment and it was not helping him so I had to take him to the hospital. They couldn't do anything for him; they tried whatever they could and then they had to send him to a pediatric hospital. Two years ago I took Brian on a trip and there was a trigger in the hotel room. I had to check out of the hotel in the middle of the night because he couldn't breathe. I have no idea what the trigger was. It was a new hotel, and actually his cousin, who's also asthmatic, was with us, and the cousin started having an asthma attack as well. My brother decided to stay with his son in that hotel. I checked out and went to another hotel. And the in the other hotel, my son was fine. Now when I go someplace, I will look up where the nearest hospital is the directions to go there. I will plan for the worst-case scenario. It gives you a really comfortable feeling when you get there, because if something happens, boom. You know how to get there.Colds and triggers and asthma = respiratory distress Brian's asthma is rather mild and it in and of itself hasn't been a problem. However, if he gets a cold, and is exposed to the allergen triggers, the three of them will cause him to go into respiratory distress. And we're very on top of that. As soon as he starts sniffling, we're right there with the Albuterol, keeping an eye on him. Katie has severe food allergies— she's a child of anaphylaxis (see EJ editor note below) to food and protein, and she's asthmatic. That can be a deadly combination. Respiratory distress can certainly be a part of anaphylaxis, and then you throw asthma on top of that, and it can spiral downward very quickly. And if you put an asthmatic child on a respirator, it can be very difficult to get them off of it. It's not a good combination— it's two strikes against them. So if she gets a cold, that will kick her asthma in, and then she ends up on a steroid to control it. But if she had a food allergic reaction on top of that, and it caused an asthma exacerbation, it wouldn't be good. So that's always on our radar screens.EJ editor note: Anaphylaxis is an acute severe allergic reaction that occurs when a person is exposed to a trigger substance to which they have already become sensitized. Even small amounts of the substance can cause a life-threatening reaction. His allergies cause his asthma Because Jason's allergies cause his asthma and he's only four years old, it's hard to make sure that he doesn't come into contact with all the things that could cause his asthma to act up. I mean, even him putting his fingers in his mouth could potentially cause a flare-up, especially if he just touched something that he's allergic to. It's hard trying to keep the fingers out of a four-year-olds mouth— he constantly has something in his mouth! There are times when he keeps his shirt in his mouth. What if he just brushed up against something he's allergic to when he was wearing that shirt? It can get difficult.Sometimes kids tease her about her eczema Her teachers are very aware of Lucy's needs, and they are very helpful. There were a couple of little boys that were teasing her because of her eczema patches, and she got very upset. The teachers explained to them how it bothered her and this is something you don't tease someone about, so she's very appreciative of that as well.His asthma is mainly because of his allergies The only time his asthma really affects Jason is when it acts up. Otherwise, he can do basically almost everything everybody else can do. But if he's got a cold, or if he's eaten something he's not supposed to have eaten, because for him his asthma's mainly because of his allergies, his asthma acts up. Then he has to do the nebulizer treatments. They get him more hyper than he normally is, and then he tries to run around more, and he can't breathe, so it makes it harder. Jordan was diagnosed with eczema when he was just a baby. After the asthma attack when he was three-and-a-half years old, his primary doctor told me that eczema and asthma go hand in hand. Well, no one ever mentioned this to me before. Plus, it was said to me like I should have already known this. When I took Jordan into the hospital for his asthma, I think it was there that I was told, eczema, asthma, and allergies go hand in hand. I was floored. He had been suffering with his eczema since he was a baby, now asthma, and now I learn my son has tons of allergies to everything you can think of. I think this is something parents should be made aware of early on. Not that I could have prevented anything ahead of time, but you never know!!Sometimes she's OK, and sometimes she's not I don't know if Mya has allergies. Sometimes when she's around dogs, she's ok, and then other times she's around dogs she's not. I don't know what it is. If she gets a cold, or gets exposed to kids who are sick; I don't know if that's what triggers it. My sons play with my sister's dog. We own a house that is a three-family home, and the dog lives with my sister— we don't live with the dog. The dog cannot be where my sons are, and when they play with the dog it's always outside. If my sons go to a house where there are animals inside they will start sneezing right away.Dogs, carpet, cats, environment We have a small short haired dog, and if the dog licks Lucy she'll get blotches from it. She can't have carpets around, so we threw out all our carpets. Cats definitely bother her; she's deathly allergic to cats. Just everything in the environment— grass, maple trees, oak trees, and pine trees— anything like that bothers her. She's building up a tolerance because there's no way of keeping her from going outside, but I just keep a better eye on her when I start hearing the sniffles and stuff.After our cat died, significant improvement It's really not clear what kind of asthma Toby has. He seems to wheeze with exercise, he seems to wheeze with certain allergic things and he seems to wheeze when he is sick. He definitely wheezes when he is sick. After our cat died I noticed a significant improvement, because he was so young at the time nobody had ever tested him for allergies. I did notice a significant difference in the improvement of his cough after the cat died.We don't know what his allergies are yet We do not know if Tyson is allergic to pets yet. He has severe allergies, but to what I don't know. We do have a cat which I've had for nine years. So he could be allergic to it. We did his allergy shots, but he was only two then and wasn't old enough. They said by the time he is either five or six they would redo the shots to see what his allergies are. He definitely has allergies to a lot of things which then trigger asthma— cigarette smoking, the weeds in the grass, the cat's dander. I mean it could be anything. I won't get anymore animals until we find out what his allergies are, but I don't want to put my cat to sleep either. But if his asthma really got bad I would have to give up our cat. You have to do those things for your kids.Spending the night with a cat in the house My eleven-year-old cousin Marcie has allergies and asthma, so when she comes to my house to visit or to sleep over I have to load her up with all kinds of medications because I have a cat. She's on Benadryl, she's on Advair, she's on this, she's on that. There's a lot of maintenance for her just to spend the night at my house with a cat.
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Hospital Boston Department of Psychiatry. All Rights Reserved. The information on this website should not be taken as medical advice, which can only be given to you by your personal health care professional. Updated: June 5, 2007 |
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