Summer is now over, we have started Julian now on his asthma control medicine, Flovent. We give him 2x a day, morning and night. He was diagnosed with asthma his first year. When we do get to the cold season, i cringe.. winter for us is hard on Julian. Last year was a good year for us. I could count the number of times we had to use the rescue medication, Albuterol due to an attack.
We follow the asthma action plans to the T, and that has really helped Julian. He has been on the green zone most of the year. This week i have heard him sneeze and have that dry cough in the middle of the night. I know the weather is changing. Normally when he coughs a lot at night we would put a humidifier in his room and if that doesn’t help we give him his albuterol.
When he catches a cold, or some type of bug, that compromises his immune system and we put him on the yellow zone right away. We give him 4 puffs of his Flovent 2x a day for 2 weeks, then give him his albuterol for wheezing or coughing as needed every 4 hours. This usually takes care of it. We sometimes give him the nebulizer treatments with Albuterol or Xopenix solution in if it is really bad. He is at the age where he can sit and we just put that mask around him. His dad actually prefers the nebulizer treatments for the night time treatment. He props pillows for him and puts him to his bed, he usually falls asleep with it on, and of course by then it is done.
During the first 2 years he was constanly on the red zone. He was on that orapred/prednisone so often. He had so many health issues then. If he was not at the Dr for one thing it was another. When We started seeing only one allergist that really helped. Our allergist got us into an active action plan, and it has been over a year now since he last had orapred. It used to make him look so puffy on the face. Also it made him want to eat all the time.
As our allergist would say…Keep up with the control medicine, Flovent religiously, so when you do get sick, it won’t hit you that bad as you would have already had the medicine in your system. If you just use it when you are sick, you are not getting all the benefits of that medication. Flovent is not a rescue medication.
Stay healthy!
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