When you have an asthma attack and have trouble breathing, the tube gets tighter and tighter around your throat like a bow tie.
Aaron, 9
It’s scary
Well my eyes get watery sometimes and sometimes when I get up I start falling down because I can’t walk that much because I can’t breathe. It’s scary.
Lucy, 7
I woke up my mom and dad
I couldn’t breathe, so I woke up my mom and dad, but I couldn’t tell them anything because I couldn’t breathe. Then my mom called 911 and I came to the hospital to the emergency room. It was scary.
Anthony, 8
A cough asthma attack
I’ve had a cough asthma attack, where I keep coughing throughout the day and a lot through the night, and then after I ate, I threw up everywhere. My mom tried to give me some cough medicine, but I threw that up everywhere so that didn’t work. So she took me to the hospital and they said I would have to stay there for two or three days. I had to stay there for three days and they had to give me this awful medicine that I hated. That was for a bad asthma attack.
Allison, 9
I would feel like I couldn’t breathe. I would cough the whole night through; sometimes I would cough up blood. I couldn’t move I was coughing so much, and then my mom would come in and put me on the nebulizer, and then I could breathe and go to sleep. Then I would have to take my inhaler a lot for the next few days. But when I couldn’t breathe it was really scary.
Allie, 18
Scared every time I got an asthma attack
When I was a kid I was scared every time I got an asthma attack. You can’t breathe. It’s scary. I’d start to feel better once we got to the hospital though. As I got into elementary school it was almost like a routine. I knew if I caught a cold, my asthma would get/be bad, almost to the point where I would end up preparing myself to go to the hospital. I would get there and everybody would know me.
Bridget, 26
An anaphylactic reaction
I actually wear a medical alert bracelet. I am highly allergic to shellfish and nuts. When we go to a restaurant the first thing I ask about a dish, regardless of what it is, is “Does it have shellfish or nuts in it?” One time I went to a friend’s house and I had a muffin. Before I ate it I asked if there were nuts in it. She said, “I threw the package out, but I’m pretty sure that there isn’t.” So I had a couple bites of it, and a little later back at my dorm I was washing my face and all the sudden my eyes started to swell and I could feel my hair follicles. I went downstairs and I said, “I think I ate something I am allergic to. You have to call campus safety and 911.” They immediately did it and the hospital was not even a five minute drive away. By the time I got to the hospital I was already in the first stages of an anaphylactic reaction.
They had to cut my clothes because it looked like I went from 120 pounds to 220 pounds. My friends at that time weren’t aware of how serious it was and so after the situation I went and told them what happened because I almost died. I actually went unconscious, my asthma was terrible, my blood pressure was off the roof, and it was horrible. The lesson that I learned is if you don’t know exactly what is in something, you don’t touch it regardless. I don’t even want to put anyone in that situation, plus it’s quite embarrassing for me at the same time too because of what the result of eating something that you are allergic to can be. So with myself I try to stay away from things that could trigger me.
Bridget, 26