ibuprofen and asthma Archives

How Your Asthma and Allergies Change Over Time

Most recently updated July 7th, 2023

Estimated Reading Time: 18 minutes

If you live in the South, you know all about the annual yellow haze that hangs in the air and the yellow dust that covers every surface in the Spring.

This year we’ve had an especially prolonged pine pollen season. It started in February, and was still going strong in early April.

If you’re lucky, it’s just annoying.

Author, out standing in a field - full of bees! — Author, out standing in a field – full of bees!

Other people spend weeks this time every year wheezing and sneezing and taking LOTS of allergy meds.

Still another group of people (who never used to wheeze or sneeze in the Spring) find that they suddenly HAVE become allergic to the pervasive yellow dust….or something else, like, say bee stings.

How can that be? What happened?

The truth is that allergies and asthma, including what your triggers are, can change over time and strike without warning.

Bee Legends, Folklore, and Mythology — A busy bee doing it’s thing.

I experienced an unexpected new allergy earlier this year, with frightening and nearly deadly results!

Read on to learn more about my death-defying experience, plus how allergies change, and what you can do about it.

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Asthma and COVID-19: Are You at Higher Risk?

Most recently updated July 7th, 2023

Estimated Reading Time: 20 minutes

If you have asthma, like I do, you may be extra concerned about how COVID-19 could affect your health.

COVID-19, after all, is a respiratory disease and those of us with asthma have had bad experiences with those.

And by “concerned” I might also mean frightened, anxious, panicky… 😉

The COVID-19 virus is known to cause problems in the respiratory tract (nose, throat and lungs).

Because asthma is also a respiratory disease, it’s been assumed that people with asthma have a greater chance of catching the virus and getting very sick from it than other people.

It’s a reasonable assumption, and asthmatics have been classified as “high risk” since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But I’m here to tell you, I’ve done the research, and at this point – maybe for the first time ever – asthmatics are just like everyone else 🙂

It’s important to know that currently there’s no evidence of increased COVID-19 infection rates in those with asthma.

And now, after months of studying this new disease, medical and infectious disease experts have been able to create a more exact picture of the risk to asthmatics.

Since the release of the vaccines, there have also been questions about the possible risk to people with allergic reactions. I’ll tell you what I found about the current CDC advice.

(I’ve included photos of my garden and places I’ve traveled, as a reminder both that while there is beauty to be found at home, the world is still full of amazing places waiting for us to find them!)

Continue reading Asthma and COVID-19: Are You at Higher Risk?

Fight Asthma with Vitamins and Supplements

Most recently updated July 7th, 2023

If you’ve read some of my other posts, you know that I’ve had asthma and have been fighting asthma my whole life.

In spite of allergy shots and prescribed inhalers and pills, my asthma got worse every year.

Eco-friendly garden at Lake Crabtree County Park.

After a childhood full of midnight ER visits and college years laced with time in Intensive Care, I had complete respiratory failure as a young working adult, and spent several days unconscious on a ventilator.

After that event, the doctors could only advise that I take more daily medications and stay indoors in a controlled environment.

I realized then that the available asthma treatments would probably keep me alive, but would severely limit my life.

So, I moved across the country to escape the worst of my local airborne triggers – and got some breathing room 😉

Since then I’ve experimented with diet, exercise and supplements to find what might help reduce my symptoms and my use of most medications.

Through research plus trial and error, I’ve created a strategy that helps me breathe easier and stay healthy enough to do just about anything I want to do!

In this post I tell you about the vitamins and supplements available and the ones I’ve used – and mostly still use – that appear to help asthma.

For inspiration I’m also sharing more photos of beautiful places I’ve been able to hike, and beautiful plants and animals that haven’t made me wheeze 🙂

If you’re looking for additional (non-medical) ways to minimize or even eliminate asthma symptoms, maybe this strategy could help you, too!

Continue reading Fight Asthma with Vitamins and Supplements