December 23rd, 2007 by
Corsarius
It has been a long time since our last post, but we’re just in time for the holidays. To be honest, I just wanted to report on something that intrigues me both as an asthma sufferer and as a coffee drinker — regular coffee drinkers have about 1/3 less asthma symptoms than those of non-coffee drinkers.
That’s according to a Harvard researcher who studied 20,000 people, as reported on Coffee Addict. An excerpt:
In particular, drinking caffeinated coffee in the situation of an emergency onset of asthma can allow the patient to breathe easily. Doctors have recommended coffee as an emergency way of treating asthma patients who find themselves with a sudden onset and no medication for many, many years.
I only started regularly drinking coffee four months or so ago (yes, at age 22, I’m a late bloomer). Coincidentally, during these past months, I haven’t had a serious asthma attack, and I have sparingly used my inhaler. Read the rest of this entry »
June 26th, 2007 by
Corsarius
(The following is a paid review.)
Asthma Inhalers Central might be a blog that focuses on asthma, but we’re not excluding other great health resources on the Net. Today we take a look at Medicexchange, a medical imaging portal where one could find “the world’s leading medical imaging solutions all in one place.” You can browse through a slew of these in their medical software directory. Aside from these solutions, Medicexchange also provides the latest healthcare news and free trial downloads of medical software. This makes the portal a very helpful place, especially with its intuitive user interface and site navigation.
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January 5th, 2007 by
Corsarius
While searching the Net for more knowledge about asthma inhalers, I came across a couple of articles positing that inhalers and other asthma drugs can cause tooth erosion. Here’s an excerpt from this article:
Some 20 million Americans suffer from asthma, including 6.3 million children, and the various drugs they take — inhalers, syrups and often sugar-coated steroids — are typically taken repeatedly throughout the day. These medications can leave asthmatics with higher levels of enamel erosion and tooth decay, according to recent studies.
From my own experience, I have had relatively well-maintained teeth since childhood, despite using inhalers at least once a day (as of this writing). Read the rest of this entry »
December 12th, 2006 by
Corsarius
I never go out of the house without my asthma inhaler — it’s better to be safe than gasping for air, or worse, dead. However, anybody who has tried tucking their inhaler into their pants’ pocket knows how it can ruin your fashion (”what’s that clunky bulge?!”) and be a literal pain in the thigh (putting it in the back pocket is a no-no), especially for fit jeans.
Well, a friend of mine directed me to a certain Squidoo page on “Puffer Totes”, and look what I found — the Med Ready Puffer Tote Asthma Inhaler Carrier.
Read the rest of this entry »
December 8th, 2006 by
Corsarius
In our article about metered-dose inhalers, we said that some people have trouble using asthma puffers, since they have to coordinate the pressing of the inhaler with the inhalation of the medicine. The answer to this is the asthma spacer, also called aerosol-holding chambers, add-on devices, and spacing devices.
A spacer is a plastic or metal tube that slows the delivery of medication from the inhaler, thereby increasing its effectiveness. Spacers fit the inhaler on one end, while the user breathes normally on the other end.
I’ve used an asthma inhaler spacer quite a few times, especially when I was a child. Read the rest of this entry »
December 6th, 2006 by
Corsarius
It’s been quite a while (an understatement) since our last entry — you can attribute that to tons of work. During that period, I feel that my asthma attacks have lessened, thus reducing my need for my asthma inhaler.
Now, that might seem illogical — I just said that I’ve got tons of work, yet my asthma condition has improved. Why so? Isn’t stress supposed to increase the risk of an asthma attack? I’m not so sure myself, but here are a couple of reasons I can think of:
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July 3rd, 2006 by
Corsarius
In our first Famous Asthmatics article, we featured Beethoven, St. Bernadette, and Dennis Rodman (what an unlikely triumvirate!). Today, we have a trio composed again of people from different walks of life: Liz Taylor, Charles Dickens, and Dominique Wilkins.
Elizabeth Taylor, famous Hollywood star and two-time Oscar awardee for Best Actress. If there’s anyone who believes that asthmatics are sickly, atrophied people, he should take a look at the beauty that is Liz Taylor. Some asthmatics don’t take too kindly to perfume, so it might also seem ironic that Liz Taylor launched two perfume lines late in her career.
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June 11th, 2006 by
Corsarius
This might be shocking for some asthmatics — yours truly included.
As someone who’s been using metered-dose inhalers for most of my life (beginning with my pediatrician’s prescription way way back), I was kind of dumbfounded to know that I could’ve used, let’s say, a dry powder inhaler just as well!
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June 8th, 2006 by
Corsarius
In the previous article, we briefly discussed dry powder asthma inhalers, called DPIs for short. Here, we give an overview on how to use them.
Because there are many brands and kinds of dry powder inhalers in the market, there might be specific instructions for using each one. To ensure effective asthma treatment, please consult a medical professional. However, you can still rely on general instructions for using a DPI.
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June 5th, 2006 by
Corsarius
Several entries ago, we mentioned that there are two kinds of asthma inhalers. We’ve already discussed the first type, the metered-dose inhaler. It’s time you got acquainted with the second type, namely the dry powder inhaler.
Dry powder inhalers (DPIs for short) don’t use chemical propellants to release the medication, unlike metered-dose inhalers (MDIs). DPIs, as their name implies, use finely divided powder that is inhaled by the user more rapidly than he/she would with MDIs. A standard amount of the powder dose must be placed for the user to inhale, and this medication is directly delivered by DPIs into the lungs.
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