Asthma and puberty - how was it for your DC?

[Schulte]

Hoping I’m posting this in the right place - there don’t seem to be any asthma threads at the moment?

DD is 12 and has suffered from asthma since she was 7. Before that, she had eczema and an egg allergy, plus suspected peanut allergy, but she grew out of all those things. She also had croup many times before she developed asthma.

Her asthma has progressively got worse - we are constantly stepping up her preventer treatment and she’s still getting flare ups - and noticeably harder to control since she turned 11 and started puberty.

I always thought asthma gets milder as they grow up but with DD, she seems to go the opposite way and it’s so hard for her and us.

Just hoping someone has some positive stories.

Thanks. No nebuliser, they put her on the salbutamol reducing regime this time because her symptoms flared up again as soon as she finished the prednisolone. The last time she had to do that regime was three years ago.

When I say her symptoms flare up… she doesn’t cough, she says she’s not breathless, but she can be full of mucous and her chest goes tight once or twice every day. She said her lungs were hurting too, that was a new thing.

Ah sounds like mild respiratory infection what with mucous which is also a trigger for asthma. It’s fine to use inhaler during that as well.

Lungs hurting can be one of two things. All our organs have a membrane around them to protect them. Sometimes the membrane around your lungs gets a bit sticky and sticks, so then breathing gives you a very sharp pain in the lungs/chest. Best thing is to breathe deeply through the pain until it stops. If it doesn’t go away or keeps coming back, then it might be pleurisy which is an inflammation of the membranes over the lungs and should see a doctor about it.

Second type lung pain would be a dull ache in middle of chest below breast bone every time you breathe and that is muscle ache of the diaphragm from all the extra effort it has to do when you are struggling to breathe/breathless.

Thank you so much @PlanDeRaccordement! Wish I could always ask for your advice

Definitely push for a consultant if she is having to have steroids, she needs it at this point. It can be a long wait but certainly worth it as allergies etc will all be looked at and that made a huge difference to ds, as things were seen as a whole rather than separate instances of being unwell, his asthma and eczema were all linked then and changes were made to medication etc. Good luck!