Asthma in a child: treatment, prevention and recommendations

Asthma is considered a chronic illness, the source of which is called non-infectious inflammation in the respiratory tract. The formation of bronchial asthma is facilitated by both external and internal irritable conditions. A variety of external conditions include a variety of allergens, as well as chemical, mechanical and atmospheric factors. Stressful conditions and physiological loads can be added to this list. The most popular factor is dust allergy.

Deficiencies of the endocrine and immune systems belong to the internal conditions for the formation of bronchial asthma. In addition, the factor may be bronchial hyperreactivity and a mismatch in susceptibility, which may be hereditary. In more detail about the symptoms and treatment in children of bronchial asthma further.

How does the disease manifest itself?

It is quite difficult for a child to establish the correct diagnosis in a timely manner. This complexity is due to the fact that quite often the disease has the same symptoms as an ordinary viral disease of the respiratory tract. Often, parents do not assume that individual symptoms report a much more significant problem than just ARI.

However, with bronchial asthma, the child does not have a fever. If there is a cough, then it is very rapid and dry, without sputum production. Before the onset of the signs or properties of asthma, as a rule, precursors occur within a few days. Their duration for any baby is different. At this time, the children are often annoyed, scared, are in continuous excitement, sleep weakly. It is worth familiarizing yourself with the symptoms and treatment of bronchial asthma in a child in order to know how to alleviate his condition and prevent attacks.

It should be taken care of if the baby has the following symptoms:

• initially, after sleep, the child releases liquid mucus from the nose, due to which the child often sneezes, rubs the nose;
• after a few hours, a slight dry cough occurs;
• in the second half of the day, coughing becomes more frequent, but it already goes a bit into the category of wet (in a child over five years old, coughing becomes wetter by the end of an asthmatic seizure);
• obvious signs appear only after a few days, and coughing is paroxysmal.

The main signs of bronchial asthma in a child of the first year of life:

• A strong dry cough, most of all happens paroxysmally instantly after sleep or before it.
• The cough is able to be less if the child is put or planted. Returning to a horizontal state leads to the fact that coughing again becomes intensified.
• Shortly before a seizure, the child can be very capricious, sob due to the onset of nasal congestion.
• Shortness of breath becomes stronger and stronger.
• Breathing becomes intermittent, and breathing quicker and small. Inhaled and exhaled oxygen is accompanied by a whistle and a hum.

Older children have the following symptoms:

• strong chest pressure, inability to take a good breath;
• when breathing through the mouth, dry coughing occurs;
• long dry cough in the absence of sputum production;
• itching, dermatological rashes or lacrimation - uncharacteristic properties of asthma;
• coughing attacks occur under the same circumstances (a domestic animal near, applying this or that paint, on the street or instantly upon arrival home, visiting the library, the presence of a fresh bouquet of flowers in the house, etc.).

Asthma attack in a child

It is very important for the father and mother to timely determine the attack of bronchial asthma in their own baby and to localize it extremely quickly. In order to do everything correctly, you should move in the next direction.

Listen to:

1. Be sure to pay attention to various complaints about issues with breathing or bored chest pain. Children older, already faced with similar seizures, have every chance to hint to you if it becomes difficult for them to breathe or simply take a breath.
2. If the baby complains of soreness in the chest, pay special attention to this. With an asthma attack, children have every chance of experiencing something in their chest that is contracting. Chest pain is considered the result of obstruction of the air along the respiratory routes and increased pressure in the lungs.
3. Little children or those who have not encountered asthma cannot tell you about shortness of breath or pain that has arisen. The child is able to get scared and close, to hide from you that something is wrong with him, to be ashamed, not to find an opportunity to clarify previously unknown feelings. Listen to your own children, that they tell you what they are trying to talk about.

Analyze:

1. Pay attention to the respiratory rate; in a state of calm, it should be approximately 20 breaths in 60 seconds. If the baby breathes more often, ask if it’s difficult for him to breathe, if there is a problem with breathing.
2. See when breathing whether a child has to perform any action for the sake of inhaling. With normal breathing, the shoulders of children will not rise.
3. Look to see if the baby has muscle compression just below the ribs when inhaling. Such retracts appear with a short breath, if the amount of air that is caught is not able to fill the right place.
4. During an attack, when you inhale, the nostrils of the children expand very much in order to draw in as much air as possible. Most often, this kind of criterion comes across in children under 1 year old, who cannot tell their mother what directly worries them.
5. Listen for wheezing when children breathe. During an asthmatic seizure, a whistling or growling sound appears, accompanied by a small pulsation. Wheezing can occur on exhalation and inhalation during a simple and moderate seizure process. With difficult - only on the exhale.
6. The presence of dry cough also indicates a paroxysm of bronchial asthma. It forms an effect in the bronchi, due to which the airways open slightly, allowing some time to breathe more or less in accordance with the norm. If a frequent cough dominates at night - this indicates a simple seizure, while a prolonged cough indicates a prolonged attack.

Evaluate the appearance of the child:

1. During an asthmatic seizure, most of the children look the same as during the cold, unhealthy. For this reason, when you see the bad situation of children, concentrate on this, listen to what your maternal beginning tells you.
2. In asthma, any body forces are focused on the resumption of breathing, for this reason the skin during this period can be sticky from sweat and faded. This is due to the lack of saturation of the body with oxygen.
3. In a severe attack, the skin near the mouth and nose of children can find a blue-violet tone. This indicates an intense lack of air. This condition of children requires immediate medical support.

Help the child:

1. If an attack of bronchial asthma does not occur for the first time, then inhalers, whose influence is focused on the suppression of a seizure, must certainly be at home. With a child, there must be a person who can help use the drug or call on the elders who can do this.
2. At the first attack, be sure to contact your own doctor so that he examines the baby and prescribes the required medications.
3. If the seizures are severe, then transportation to the clinic and medication are needed.

Asthma diagnosis

After the onset of the first attacks of bronchial asthma, an examination should be done with a pulmonologist. He collects detailed information about the course and duration of the disease, the circumstances of work and residence, the harmful habits of the patient and conducts a full medical study.

In the diagnosis of bronchial asthma, the study of lung function can help: for this purpose, it will be necessary to exhale air into a special device. Mandatory research is peak-fluometry - determining the maximum expiratory flow rate. Then it must be carried out at home using a portable pick-up meter. This must be done in order to fairly control the course of the disease and establish the necessary dose of the substance.

Laboratory methods for investigating this disease include blood and sputum tests.

Timely diagnosis and treatment of asthma in children is extremely important. After all, they will relieve complications.

It is also necessary to consult an allergist to undergo a dermatological examination for different types of allergens. This study is necessary in order to establish what is directly capable of provoking an attack.

Disease therapy

Chronic disease requires daily treatment. Only in this case can you rely on a good result. It is now impossible to completely cure chronic asthma.

There is a concept of a stepwise approach to the treatment of bronchial asthma. Its meaning is to change the dose of substances depending on the severity of the pathology. A step up is a dose increase, a step down is a dose reduction. In most medical directories, four stages are distinguished, which mean four degrees of severity of the disease. Therapy should be under the continuous supervision of a doctor.

Asthma Medications

A number of substances are used to treat an attack of bronchial asthma in children. When choosing how to treat asthma, special attention is paid to symptomatic and basic substances.

Symptomatic substances are drugs whose effect is focused on the resumption of bronchial patency and the elimination of bronchospasm (these include bronchodilators or bronchodilators). This category also includes quick-care tools for instant relief of an asthma attack. They are used as necessary.

The second category is the substances of the basic anti-inflammatory treatment of an attack of bronchial asthma in children, the effect of which is focused on the suppression of allergic inflammation in the bronchi. These are glucocorticoid hormones, cromons, antileukotriene and anticholinergic substances. Unlike quick-release substances, basic therapy drugs are prescribed for the long-term prevention of exacerbations of asthma. They do not show a swift, immediate effect. Without removing a strong attack of suffocation, anti-inflammatory substances affect the main root cause of the signs of the disease - inflammation in the bronchi. By lowering and suppressing it, these substances, in the end, lead to a decrease in the frequency and strength of seizures, and in the final result, to their absolute cessation.

Since inflammation in the bronchi in asthma is chronic, the use of anti-inflammatory substances should be long, and the result of their use is formed over time for 2-3 weeks.

Glucocorticoid hormones, in particular their tabletted or injectable forms, have enough side effects:

• suppression of immunity (and as a result, the body’s tendency to various infectious diseases);
• inflammation and ulcers of the gastrointestinal tract;
• weight gain;
• hormonal imbalance and others.

However, the pharmaceutical industry does not stand still, and the list of substances for the treatment of allergic asthma in children is regularly updated. At present, inhaled glucocorticoids, which are local and not systemic, are considered a significant achievement in the pharmaceutical industry. This is a significant category of substances of artificial origin, produced in the form of personal inhaler-dispensers or nebulizer nebulizers.

The creation of similar substances and their intensive introduction into therapy was a truly innovative step in the treatment of asthma. Great efficacy, optimal tolerance and a small number of secondary results made these substances preferred.

Of all the common anti-inflammatory substances used to cure bronchial asthma in the current period, glucocorticoids have the best ratio of safety and efficacy. Their unique quality is that when used as basic therapy, inhaled glucocorticoids are ready to reduce the initial level of bronchial tree reactivity, i.e., the tendency to respond inappropriately to a variety of irritating stimuli.

In addition, the systematic use of acupuncture glucocorticoids makes it possible to translate the course of bronchial asthma to a simpler degree and reduce the intake of inhaled adrenostimulants to a minimum.

You can not lose sight of non-drug methods of treating asthma, which can be extremely effective.

They include:

• special breathing methods and the use of different respiratory devices;
• reflexology modifications (acupuncture, electropuncture, cauterization with wormwood cigars and much more);
• physiological training techniques;
• climatotherapy (speleotherapy - therapy in salt mines, the use of so-called gala cameras), etc.

For competent therapy, it is very important for the patient (and to the perfection of his family members) to familiarize themselves with the standards for treating bronchial asthma in children, as well as attend specialized lectures where he learns the key measures for the prevention of attacks, explores the method of optimal breathing, the main groups of antiallergenic and anti-asthma substances, and besides, they can help him choose a personal hypoallergenic diet.

The need for such activities is difficult to overestimate. Since, as a result of them, a person does not remain alone with his own problem and gets used to the idea that shortness of breath is not a verdict at all, but a way of life. As a rule, there are asthma schools that operate on the basis of clinics and hospitals.

It is worth saying that it is recommended to send such a baby to a sanatorium. The treatment of asthma in children is only good in this case. Indeed, in such an institution they carry out a full range of methods developed specifically to overcome such difficulties.

Batmanghelidge Method

According to the judgment of the Iranian doctor F. Batmanghelidzh, dehydration of the human body and the formation of bronchial asthma are two processes that are directly related to each other. This statement was formed by a doctor absolutely by accident. While in custody, he cured the most severe pain in the stomach of his cellmate, asking him to drink a couple of glasses of clean water. Interested in the result, F. Batmanghelidzh summed up the theoretical basis for it by writing a huge number of academic works on the healing properties of water.

He states that the true need of the body for water is expressed not only by dryness in the throat and a feeling of thirst. Local dehydration of the patient’s body parts leads to various pathologies, including bronchial asthma. The cure for asthma according to the method of the physician F. Batmanghelidzh is not just to quench thirst with water. It is necessary to use it according to a specific scheme: drink two glasses of water thirty minutes before a meal and one glass of clean water 2.5 hours after it. In addition, water is also taken to quench thirst. You should not drink alcohol and drinks that include caffeine during the cure period, since they all contribute to dehydration.

Another significant point - in order to normalize the balance of trace elements in the body, it is necessary to use ordinary salt, putting a couple of its crystals under the tongue after drinking according to this procedure. It is preferable if it is sea salt, although ordinary table salt will also work. The medicines prescribed by the doctor are taken at the same dose. In addition, the dose of vitamin-mineral complexes should also be increased, since with an increase in the volume of urine, the number of micro- and macroelements necessary for the body to be excreted together with it increases.

Alcohol tincture

One of the methods of treating bronchial asthma in children with folk remedies is ginger infusion for alcohol.

Grate the fresh root of ginger and add alcohol or vodka to it, taking 300 g of crushed roots half a liter of alcohol. The reservoir with the mixture is hidden in a warm place for 10 days. Then the tincture is pressed, the pulp is squeezed. Use with asthma twice a day for one teaspoon. Wash down with hot milk or boiled water. The cure rate of ginger tincture lasts one month, after which they pause for two weeks.

Decoction of Ginger Roots

Dry ginger root is ground and flooded with ice water. The composition is heated in a water bath until it begins to boil. Then cover with a lid and cook for 20 minutes. The container with the finished mixture is closely covered and left until it is completely cooled. Applied in a heated form, in half a glass before meals. It is possible to take the infusion by simply adding it to tea.

Garlic oil

A very good mild and antibacterial folk remedy for the treatment of bronchial asthma in children is considered garlic oil. To make it, crush 5 large cloves of garlic, add salt to taste and mix with 100 grams of butter. Such butter is simply spread on bread.

Ledum broth

In order to cure bronchial asthma and bronchitis, a decoction is used as a cough with anti-allergic effect. In a cup of boiling water put a tablespoon of crushed rosemary herb. Boil for 10 minutes. Use a spoon six times a day.

Decoction of the roots of elecampane

Alternative treatment of bronchial asthma in children is carried out using the root of elecampane. Purchase three liters of whey, add 100 grams of the crushed roots of elecampane and honey, stir everything and put in the oven. Over time, the whey will boil, reduce the temperature in the oven and leave for four hours. Take a tablespoon thirty minutes before meals three times a day. Extend the cure until the drug is complete.

Hydrogen peroxide

Another method of treating asthma in children with folk remedies is hydrogen peroxide. It is necessary to consume it diluted in water for a month. Drink before meals, 30 drops per 125 milliliters of water.

Clinical recommendations for the treatment of bronchial asthma in children

In order to make asthma attacks extremely rare, in addition to directly targeted treatment, you need to work to prevent the disease. This refers to improving immunity and improving the general condition of children. Prevention will be an essential measure if the preschooler is genetically prone to asthma.

What are the clinical recommendations for treating bronchial asthma in children with the goal of preventing the disease:

1. Breastfeeding a child from the first days of existence and at least up to 1 year. If the mother cannot breastfeed or must interrupt, then the feeding mixtures should be selected carefully, in consultation with the pediatrician.
2. Nutrient supplementation is necessary only when the doctor allows. Introduce food in strict order with the instructions of the pediatrician, beware of allergenic products.
3. Try to free the house from excessive dust collectors. Only store books behind glass.
4. Do not bring animals into the house in order to cross out an allergy to pet hair. Try to refrain even from ordinary aquarium fish, due to the fact that in the dry feed, which need to be fed, there may be strong allergenic elements.
5. Bed linen with hypoallergenic fillers only.
6. Buy only hypoallergenic washing and cleaning products.
7. Ventilate the rooms as much as possible in calm and calm weather.
8. Clean regularly without additional cleaning agents.
9. Hardening is a good method to increase immunity and improve health.

In addition, there are some more clinical guidelines for treating asthma in children. The warm and favorable atmosphere in the family is very significant. It is important for the children to feel the love and support of the father and mother, from this, and diseases will be attacked much less often. As you can see, there is nothing complicated in the treatment and prevention of asthma in children. Therefore, you need to make every effort to protect the baby.