May 6th - World Asthma Day - The Royal College of Physicians publish a National Review of Asthma Deaths (NRAD) : Why Asthma Still kills
The review looked into the circumstances surrounding asthma deaths between 1st February 2012 & 30th January 2013.What stood out to me - the need to end the complacency around asthma care. Why you ask?
Because I've been a victim of complacency twice, one mine & once by the medical profession. Having come out the other side of this I can see just how dangerous complacency can be.
Here's my story...
2003 my first year at secondary school I was well controlled, happy & healthy, I felt the pressures of other kids, I was doing so well and wanted to be like everyone else, I didn't want to be different. I made some bad choices & decided I didn't need my medication any more. This was Possibly the biggest mistake I've ever made. I got ill time and time again. I just assumed it was normal like other kids got ill from time to time. But I just got worse, I couldn't go to school, after two weeks at home unable to get out of bed I knew something was up but I just kept deteriorating. I missed six consecutive weeks of school, as a kid who loved school I was distraught. I just couldn't cope, eventually I restarted my medication, but getting back to where I had been beforehand was a long and very difficult process (To this day my parents still have no idea this happened, my doctors do.)
Had I not of been complacent and thought that I was so well I didn't need my medication I could have avoided all of this. Instead I just got myself put on more medication and put myself at serious risk.
I'd learnt my lesson, I'd got myself back on the straight and narrow and it took it's time but I got back to being well controlled on my medication again . Everything was going so well.
2011, round two. I was out in the big wide world of work, varying high paced shifts, but I loved it! At the end of the summer season I noticed something was unusual. I just didn't feel right.
Then in September I got a cold, it ran it's course but I was still coughing, it took me a while to catch on but I was just going downhill all the time, my relievers where running out quickly, I was struggling with work. So I went to see the asthma nurse, who was fab, She went though everything, and listened to my chest for what seemed like forever. After a lot of typing up her findings, She told me I was being failed I wasn't being given the right dose or amount of preventative medication which meant my asthma wasn't being managed hence I was using way to many relievers. (exactly what the NRAD found,) She changed my preventer immediately. And reviewed a few weeks later, things improved.
2012 - now in a full time desk job, I wasn't doing much activity so my symptoms weren't staring me in the face. I though I was doing well in myself having a few troubles at night and any exercise, I thought this was normal asthma. I couldn't seem to fit in an appointment with the asthma nurse as I was no longer on shifts, so I saw a doctor with a specialism in asthma. When I went in to see him he had read up on me and we talked right through my history from day one, he did lots of notes and tests before presenting his finding on a plate.
My PF was not good, I had classic symptoms of poor control and he wasn't happy with my chest. I think I still feel guilty about the amount of time he must have overrun that day, but he gave me something no one else had ever done he classified my asthma. He told me i was a moderate persistent asthmatic, and if things didn't improve he would have to refer my to a consultant specialist, because I was fast progressing to severe( I had a tendency to go off quickly when things go bad). This petrified me, even more so when he said and I quote because I remember this day like yesterday " if I was to put a camera down, right here, right now, I'm certain your lungs would be the colour of my tie (bright red!), the inflammation you have is dangerous, we need to act now, before the damage can't be reverse, this could kill you" that was the shock of my life, I knew I had a life long condition but no one had so openly said it could kill me before.
They say every cloud has a silver lining, I might live with my asthma but I found a doctor who has given me this, the right medication, a firm diagnosis, support and the confidence to ask for help, the knowledge to recognise changes and be in control.
Complacency kills, don't let it rule you!!
