Asthma Awareness & My Story

Hi everyone! I know it's been a while since I've updated. This is going to be a serious post, but fear not I promise you will be getting a fun post tomorrow!

I wanted to bring some awareness to a disease that I struggle with and share my story. I know a lot of you on twitter see me bitch about my lungs from time to time, it's finally time to explain why.  Asthma is a common disease but most people don't really know what it is, or how much it sucks. You're probably wondering why I'm randomly bringing this topic up. What sparked this post was something that happened Thursday of last week. I had a bad asthma attack after pushing myself too hard in a work out. That was followed by another, smaller attack on Friday night. I'm still feeling the effects of it and trying to recover from it. 

So what is asthma? Asthma is a common chronic lung disease that millions of people have. There is no cure for it but there are ways to treat it. It can last just through childhood or for a few years or even for a person's entire lifetime. Unfortunately, I've been dealing with it for most of my life and probably always will.  When a person has asthma, their bronchial tubes (aka their airway) become inflamed, narrow and swell when they have an attack. Extra mucus is produced as well, which as you can imagine this all makes it hard to breathe.

Here is a comparison to show you what a normal bronchial tube looks like and what one affected by asthma looks like:

Here's another view so you can get a better idea:

Yeah, it sucks. 

There are certain triggers from allergens, air temperature and exertion that can set off an attack. It varies from person to person. The severity of it also varies. Some people get asthma so bad that they become hospitalized or even pass out. Others like my case are usually easily controlled.

So what is my asthma story? To start with, I have really shitty lungs. When I was about 6 years old I had a bad case of pneumonia. It was really sudden and surprising. It was the end of summer and I was on vacation in Vermont with my parents. Suddenly I became really sick and was vomiting like crazy, so they rushed me home to my doctor. From there I was hospitalized. I was then diagnosed with a lung disease called Emphysema. Emphysema is a type of lung disease classified as COPD (or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). It damages the alveoli (air sacs) in the lungs. Because of that, my body wasn't getting the oxygen it needed and it was difficult to breathe. My right lung also had a small hole in it that was leaking fluid so that had to be patched up in surgery along with a Lung Volume reduction surgery. The doctors pretty much scraped my lungs and removed wedges of damaged lung tissue.

Emphysema is most commonly caused by smoking. My parents were heavy smokers that smoked around me all the time as a kid. They continued to smoke around me despite doctors and surgeons warnings until my dad died when I was 18, and when my mom quit smoking when I was 21. 21 years of heavy secondhand smoke can wreak havoc on your lungs. So please if you smoke and have children or nieces or nephews do not smoke around them. You can cause serious and life long damage.

I honestly don't know a ton about emphysema. I recently started doing research because I was wondering if my illness as a child was still affecting me and my parents weren't too concerned about it after I recovered. No one even told me what it was, just that it made me really sick and I had to have lung surgery because of it. It turns out there is no cure for Emphysema and apparently I still have it and always will. But there are ways to treat it and live with it.

I should mention that typically people don't get Emphysema until they're in their 50s/60s, even in their 40s. It's very rare to be diagnosed with it before 25 let alone as a child. So I'm 22 with the lungs of an old lady. Yay me.

I have asthma as a result of the emphysema. My main triggers are cold air, being sick and major exertion. Winters are absolute hell for me, the cold air makes it so I can't breathe every time I leave the house. When I catch a cold it is usually 10 times worse because my asthma complicates it.

Growing up I was stuck using a Nebulizer, which is a machine that emits a vapor with medication that you breathe in. I had to have breathing treatments from it so often that we had to buy a machine. 

Yup, that's a variation of the machine. It sucks having to use one but they do help. 

I was less reliant on it as I grew older so my parents got rid of it. But now, every once in a while or when I have a bad cold or attack I have to go to my doctor's office for a treatment.

As a kid I also had to take Advair Diskus, which is a Fluctonase/Salmeterol inhaled powder along with another inhaler. It basically was an inhaled steroid to help my lungs. Now, I only use my Proair HFA Albuterol Sulfate rescue inhaler when I feel symptoms coming on or when they persist.

I have never had an asthma attack bad enough to hospitalize me but I nearly have. When the purple wedding happened on Game of Thrones (I'll be nice and not spoil it for anyone), I became so excited that I had an asthma attack. It was the worst one of my life. I honestly probably should have gone to the hospital but I turned out alright! I coughed like crazy and could barely breathe for a week. I got few hours of sleep each night because it was impossible for me to lie down and still be able to breathe. I would wake up in the middle of the night nearly chocking on coughs. Yeah, that was a real blast.

It typically takes me between a few days to a week to recover from an attack. It depends on the severity of the attack and if I have any aftershocks. An aftershock is what I call a smaller asthma attack as a result of the bigger one. When I have an asthma attack, I have a very hard time breathing and cough like crazy. My chest becomes tight and my lungs feel irritated. It has gotten to the point of me feeling faint before but I've never fainted from one. Sometimes they give me dizzy spells, but a lot of that also has to due with the exhaustion I get as a result of asthma. I usually keep my inhaler in close proximity at all times just in case.

After an attack, during what I call the recovery period I continue to feel the effects from it for at least a few days. My chest will still feel tight and I will have issues breathing sometimes. I'll be wheezy and coughing. Asthma attacks always leave me feeling tired and weak. If I exert myself physically in any way I become in danger of having another attack. Sometimes it is difficult to sleep because it'll be harder to sleep lying down. I also will have mucusy lungs and end up coughing a lot of that up ( I know, it's totally gross). Then there's the fun lung/chest/stomach muscle/back ache I sometimes end up with if I'm coughing really hard or often and from also breathing in more deeply to prevent coughing. Honestly it leaves me feeling pretty horrible. To help speed up the recovery, I try to rest a lot and not do much of anything as well as drink lots of water and use my inhaler.

For the past few years I have felt like my asthma attacks have worsened and become more frequent. But for now, they're controlled fairly easily.

Anyway I hope that this post educated everyone on the seriousness of asthma. If you have a loved one with this disease I feel it's important to educate yourself so you can help them if needed. It also helps to be understanding of it. I know my family doesn't always understand and insists that there is nothing wrong with me when I'm coughing and feeling like shit. If you suspect you could have asthma, get tested. If you have asthma, always keep a form of treatment nearby. Don't be stupid.

To end this on a good note, this video is my new favorite thing xD. [Here's a link in case you can't see the embedded video www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbdvogFyZZM ]Keep an eye out for tomorrow's much more fun post!

Xoxo

Stay Creepy <3