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Robin Nunes controls her asthma the same way she guides her 1,800-pound horse over jumps in competition—with confidence. The college student has successfully reined in her attacks. Proof of that success be seen on the walls of her room. Reams of ribbons hang like brightly colored vines—Robin guesses she’s won more than 680 ribbons for her horsemanship. Asthma is nothing to sneeze at.It affects five million young people in this country. The sudden surge of diagnoses, particularly among children, baffles scientists. Since the early 1980s the incidence of asthma has increased 73 percent and accounts for nearly 5,000 deaths a year. Robin didn’t develop asthma until she was 14, which is relatively late. To her dismay, she found out she was not only allergic to cats and dogs, but also horses. "I couldn’t breathe. I’d turn blue. I had to be put in the hospital,’’ she says. After three years of emergency visits and many lost school days, Robin and her parents, Helen and David, turned to Anthony Mansell, MD, who took Robin off the bulky nebulizer unit she was breathing into every day, and switched her to a small inhaler, which is filled with a drug that opens airways. In the last year the use of her daily inhaler has produced dramatic results, with no hospitalizations and only a single attack. The Nuneses couldn’t be happier."When we first got the diagnosis, it was frightening," says Helen Nunes. "Now Robin has a life," she says. "She has a driver’s license, she has a job. This is a section of our life that’s closed." Robin agrees. "I feel so much better now," she says. "I take my inhaler with me when I go to work instead of having to come home and spend 15 minutes breathing on a nebulizer machine and feeling jittery. I can do so much more, and not have to worry as much." Making sure his young asthma patients lead a normal life, both physically and emotionally, is a top priority for Mansell, a pediatric pulmonologist at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, the pediatric division of Rhode Island Hospital. "Our goal is to get the child functioning normally at school, and to take part in all exercise and gym activities with no restrictions. Almost all children with asthma can have normal activity." Mansell works closely with school nurses. "I tell them not to overreact. If school personnel get upset, that will make the child worse," he says. He gives the same advice to parents. Tips from Mansell to asthma-proof a house include putting plastic sheets and allergenic covers on pillowcases. Housecleaning should be done when children are outside, so they don’t inhale the dust. Stuffed animals have to go because they are a haven for allergens. To prevent an asthma attack, Robin also uses her inhaler just before climbing into Cosmo’s saddle. Her room is definitely off limits to the family’s four cats and dog. |
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