Tuesday, October 28, 2008

A mother's worry

My beautiful 14 year old daughter is a chronic asthma sufferer. She has been this way since the age of 5 and we have had to seek treatment at the hospital twice for shortness of breath and increasing difficulty with breathing. For a few years now we have discovered that a "cocktail" of medications she began taking daily, helps to control her asthma symptoms. She has been taking Advair (a steroid), Singulair and Zyrtek once a day for many years. We have been lucky, for the last four or five years, she has not had any major flare ups-until last Tuesday. I somehow managed to give her my cold,(a major asthma trigger) and she had an episode that required medical treatment. We did not go to the hospital, but I took her to the pediatrician and she was promptly given a nebulizer treatment of Albuterol. Since last Tuesday she has been better but today she needed another nebulizer treatment and now seems much better. I have to admit I felt uneasy about pumping all these meds into my baby's body even though she found immediate relief.
I decided to go to the internet and research natural remedies for the treatment of asthma. Here's what I found:

Honey : Honey is one of the most effective home remedies for asthma. It is said that if a jug of honey is held under the nose of the asthmatic patient and he inhales the air that comes into contact with honey, he starts breathing easier and deeper.
Garlic : Ten cloves of garlic should be boiled in 30 ml of milk. This makes an excellent medicine for the early stages of asthma. The patient should take this mixture once daily.
Turmeric: The patient should be given a teaspoon of turmeric powder with a glass of milk, two or three times daily. It acts best when taken on an empty stomach.

Some of the most common natural asthma remedies include:
* Fish oil products
* Magnesium supplements
* Antioxidants – Chamomile, rosemary, spearmint, thyme and cloves contain many antioxidants
* Ginseng and licorice

These all sound like great natural alternatives,(maybe not garlic, she is in high school) but how do I know if one or all will be effective in controling her symptoms?

Are there any asthma sufferers out there with any advice?

3 comments:

LYDIA said...

I am not a sufferer - but this is great information. I will pass it along.

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MJenks said...

I'm an asthma sufferer, and I've always heard that honey is one of the worst things you can give an asthma sufferer, at least one with allergies, as there is sometimes pollen mixed in with the honey that can actually trigger an attack.

I've heard that caffeine actually helps, which I guess makes sense, I guess. Sometimes I drink some coffee and it does seem to help, but I could also be rocking a psychosomatic response, too.