This is another posting about asthma. People have been asking me lately exactly where asthma comes from in the first place. What is it about? Who gets it and who doesn’t? There are many different possibilities that can bring you into the fold of people with asthma. First we have to be clear in saying that asthma comes in a wide variety of different forms, from mild to severe. This is a big difference in the quality of life between people on all sides of this. The variety of sources of asthma is almost as broad as the symptoms it creates. This is where we need to pay close attention. Asthma can be a genetic thing, passed along in your family. Sometimes it develops from a tendency towards allergies of various kinds, which can sometimes develop into something more dangerous. In other words, take a look at some of the situations that Brown University doctors suggest in which you should see your doctor to make sure that your respiratory system is in order.

I’ve been typing a lot about asthma in the last few weeks just because it’s interesting. It’s one of those things that affect many people, and there are many different kinds of therapy that people are looking at in order to try to treat this disease. They are also looking for a cure, but that’s a little more elusive at the moment. One of the interesting things that I’ve found is what they call a psycho-physical therapy that they studied as part of the asthma treatment. They want to do breathing and body therapy, relaxing the body and breathing. It isn’t brand new that asthma attacks can be brought on by stress or panic attacks. As a result, it wouldn’t be a bad thing for people to learn to properly be calm and relax in order to treat this kind of problem. This would be a nice way for a person to learn to cope with their asthma over the course of their lives. Then the person can at least mitigate the problem once in awhile. The study found that this is a kind of therapy that should be studied further.

Asthma seems to be a bigger and bigger problem in America. If you can imagine, there are many different kinds of people with asthma, including people who are in cities or in rural areas. Some people may think that the statistics are higher in a city because of pollution and other kinds of city-related problems. But it turns out that there are plenty of people in all areas of the country who are in that position. The CDC is keeping a close eye on this health issue, because they need to know if there are “hot” areas, areas with a particularly high number of people with those particular illnesses. Then they can investigate and make sure that the causing factor is limited as much as possible. They also have a project that looks at proactive ways for people to take on the illness for themselves. This way they will recognize the problem and symptoms of crises and take the right kind of action.

Anyone who’s ever watched ER or House has seen intubation. It’s not real, of course, because these are highly paid actors who need to keep their windpipes safe when possible. But many of you might have some question of how this works. The main idea is that if the patient has a blockage, swelling or some other problem in the windpipe, the doctors insert what amounts to a tube in the trachea, through which air can be delivered. Then various instruments can be attached. For example, they can put one of those big rubber balls on it and manually deliver air, particularly during a critical care phase of treatment. Later on, they might add a mechanical system that is powered to add the air to the patient’s lungs easily. Surely there are other instruments with which I’m not familiar that a doctor can attach to the trach tube. Read a little more about the intubation process here.

There is a new study being set up for people with sleep apnea and other similar kinds of illnesses. The idea is to test whether a CPAP device would be good for also measuring the number of apnea events in a given night. Based on the call for volunteers to take part in the study, it’s a little difficult to tell what the study is actually going to do, but they spend a bit of time describing the requirements for what kinds of patients they actually need. For example, people between 21 and 75 years old and a “Diagnosis of OSAHS with a baseline AHI ≥ 15 events/hr of sleep within one year of screening” are some of the minimal requirements. There are a bunch of exclusion factors that may affect you too. It is a study that can really have a positive effect on people’s lives in the end, so we encourage you to take part if you fit in the requirements.

This site isn’t merely about respiratory aid products, but also about the process of making respiratory aids and how they work. In this case, there are lots of different places where such kinds of respiration aids are designed and figured out. The NASA space program has designed many different kinds of mechanisms for respiration because, of course, in space everything respiratory needs to be helped. As a result, they need to design a special system for this and that oxygen delivery. Similarly, in the airplane designing industry, they also have to design systems to give the passengers and crew oxygen, not only in emergencies, but also on a regular basis. In both of these programs, oxygen needs to be actively delivered into the cabin, similar to the way a CPAP system works. It will give oxygen to fully fill the cabin and then everyone involved remains safe throughout the trip.

Neuromuscular illnesses happen to 1-2 people in every 100,000 and it’s tough for the people how have them, as well as the people in their lives. Sometimes these diseases can be lessened or held in place with the use of non-invasive respiratory aids. The reason for death in a lot of these cases is that the muscles the person uses to breath stop working properly and they simply can’t breathe ultimately. But there is research in progress that gives you an idea of what kinds of aids will actually help in the process of healing a person. At the very least, there are certain aids that will allow the person to continue breathing without having to have a trach tube or anything like that. It’s going to be great to see where all this research eventually leads, where people might actually be able to live for a long time with one of the neuro diseases.

There is an unexpected danger that comes from using an inhaler. You have to be careful about what might have attached itself to an inhaler when you use the device. There is a report here that a woman was at the market and needed to use her inhaler when she started having an asthma-like attack. She pulled out her inhaler and used it in the normal way, completely properly. But her condition actually worsened and then she was taken to the hospital. She was in a rather poor condition at that point. Eventually they found a foreign body lodged in her throat and pulled it out. When she was able, she told them that it was the cap to an eyeliner pencil or another kind of makeup device. It seems that it had gotten stuck to/in the spout of the inhaler and was then shot into her throat when she used the inhaler. In other words, even though it’s a little complicated, remember to check the spout of the inhaler before you use it.