Questions

Hey

I have a couple of questions and was wondering if anyone could help me out with them. My asthma's being playing up badly and I'd been having a fair few attacks, my school are now being extra careful and making sure they keep an eye on aerasol use and being a lot stricter on it, but although my attacks have lessened, i'm still getting syptoms pretty much every day and they g3et in the way wasy of some of my lessons.

I've been put on montelukast, symbicort plus all my other hayfever drugs but they weren't helping relieve the symptoms completely (although they did help a bit) so I've been refered to see someone at the peadiatric (sp?) clinic at the hospital . I'm not entriely sure what to expect.

Anyway, at school one of my teachers (well supply teachers) is a yoga teachersaand she's doing a degree for something (yoga therapy i think?) and she's aware that I have asthma. Today she asked if she could do a 'study' on yoga and asthma and how yoga helps symptoms. It seems like it would be a good idea to wait to see what this person at the hospital says though? But does anyone have any experience with yoga therapy and what sort of things I'll have to do as part of it?

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Hi Becca,

sorry to hear you have been having a rough time recently. Sounds like your school have been really helpful though which is great. The clinic will be a bit like going to see your own doctor, but either in a hospital or in a clinic somewhere else. They might want to get you to do lung function tests before you see the doctor - these are a bit like peak flow which you probably do at home, and involve blowing into some tubes, so not scary at all. a Paediatrician is just another name for a specialist children's doctor - you may well see one who has an interest in asthma - even if not they all see a lot of asthma in young people.

About the yoga - some people find yoga and relaxation type exercises can help their asthma. It is certainly worth thinking about, but whatever you do don't stop your asthma medicines because you are doing it - make sure you take what your doctor has told you to. It sounds a little odd to me that she is wanting to do a study - usually studies of any sort need to get ethical approval - checked out to make sure that they are done in the safest possible way and that all the posible risks and benefits are stated at the start. You would need to sign some kind of consent form. It sounds a wee bit like she would just like to try out her ideas on you, and if that is the case, you would need to be sure that you didn't do anything that would make your asthma worse, like stop your medicines or anything.

I hope that you get on ok at the paediatrician and that this spell settles down quickly- do let us know how you are doing.

Sarah

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Hi Becca,

re the 'study', like Owl says, if this is a proper piece of research in connection with a proper degree, then the project should have ethical approval. this means someone else will have looked at what this teacher is planning to do and OK'd it. She should have an information sheet that would tell you exactly what you would be doing as well as the possible benefits and possible risks.

If she cant give you more information I'd be cautious. Like Owl says yoga type exercises might be helpful, but if you are interested in trying it you can do it in a properly supervised environment with someone qualified rather than as part of a piece of research, which isn't going to be designed specifically to help you but to look at what works and what doesnt.

hope the paediatrician appt is useful

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I have been doing meditation for years and it does help. If nothing else it stops me brooding although sometimes it can be hard to get into the ""zone"". I find at times like these it is best to give up do something else (knitting in my case) and come back to it later. No relaxation techniques work for me if I force them.

Bex

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Hey

Thanks for the replies. I think she's genuine, she gave me a lot of sheets to fill in and wrote a letter to my parents and gave me some information on who she's training with etc. Sorry, i didn't make that clear. Thanks for the information though! I'll give it a go i think, but wouldn't dream of stopping taking my meds!

Becca xx