Asthma UK post - Personal Asthma Action Plans

When ‘A’ has an asthma attack there’s a sick feeling I get in my stomach that threatens to fill me with blind panic. It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve dealt with the same symptoms, fearing for her safety and remembering how bad things can be is so debilitating, yet it’s at this stage that thinking clearly and getting her the right treatment is essential in preventing an emergency and finding ourselves back in A&E.

When she was 18 months old (she's 7 now), A had a number of chest infections and as she came down with another I remember thinking that something wasn’t right. She was coughing constantly and began to sound wheezy. We gave her a couple of puffs of her blue inhaler and the wheezing settled, but later, things got much worse. She was hurling herself around her cot, her breathing sounded terrible and at that point we rushed her into A&E.

I remember turning to look at her in the car and thinking that she looked grey. At the hospital it was clear something bad was unfolding, her blood/oxygen level was dangerously low, and although they gave her a nebuliser and oxygen, her saturation's did not improve. I'll never forget the doctor’s face as she told us that things had become more serious and that she was moving A to the High Dependency Unit. The only question I wanted to ask was the one question I didn't want to know the answer to, so I never did ask 'will she die?'

That was our introduction to Asthma.

After that first attack I remember feeling isolated in terms of what we do next. The turning point came when we went to see our specialist asthma nurse who has been an incredible support and who introduced us to Asthma UK’s ‘Personal Asthma Action Plan’. The plan details a child’s medication as agreed with their GP and provides a clear strategy of what medication to give and what help to seek as the child’s condition worsens.

When A’s coughing gets more and more incessant and we know that things are getting bad, we review her personalised plan and decide which ‘zone’ she is in (zone 1 is under control using her everyday medications ranging to zone 3 when she’s having an asthma attack). Doing this gives a feeling of control in a situation where you otherwise have very little. A’s school and carers also have a copy of the plan to refer to in the event of an attack.

As parents of an asthma sufferer you become the front line in a very individual battle. You know their triggers and the signs that things are worsening better than anyone else and you find yourself trying to objectively diagnose their condition and give the correct medication at a time when you are at your most emotional and least objective. It’s tempting to turn these decisions over to a highly trained doctor, but it’s in everyone’s interest to try to limit the severity of the attack and keep a child out of hospital. We’ve found that having the right medication with a clearly written plan of how and when to use it is a significant step in making that happen.