Bronchial Thermoplasty

Hi there. I am new to posting but wondered if anyone knew firstly if they were doing Bronchial Thermoplasty at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne yet? secondly if you need to be below a certain amount of predisolone to qualify? I have tried to reduce down from 15mg but each time my asthma flares back up.Any suggestions?

[Asthma-girl]

Welcome to the forum, I saw the below information on the Newcastle Hospitals website.

Complex Asthma Service

Asthma is a common lung condition which has a relatively small impact on many people’s day to day lives. However, it is highly unpredictable and can occasionally develop into a serious lung condition characterised by wheezing, coughing and breathlessness. This is known as “difficult” or “complex asthma”.

The characteristics of “complex asthma” differ from one person to another, but can include the following:

highly unpredictable in occurrence and severity

can be life threatening if the asthma attack is very severe

the side effects of daily medication can affect the patient's health and ability to get on with daily life

can occur even when the patient is on strong oral steroid medication

can lead to two or more emergency visits to hospital every year.

“Complex asthma” represents one of the greatest challenges in respiratory medicine, but fortunately it affects only about 10% of children and 5% of adults. As these patients can be at risk of life-threatening attacks, close monitoring is essential to control the attacks and the potential side effects of medication.

Pioneering new ways to treat asthma

Our clinicians are committed to developing new ways of treating asthma and, through their close cooperation with Newcastle University, are renowned nationally for their high quality research programmes. Our collaboration with major pharmaceutical companies has helped develop new treatments, such as Xolair/Omaluzimab and Bronchial Thermoplasty.

Many of these treatments are not yet widely available and are still being assessed and compared to the treatments used more commonly today.

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Thank you for that information Asthmagirl. I had seen that but my consultant thought they were not starting it till the end of the year. I am due back at hospital in a few weeks so hoping i will have some more news then.

Hope you are well.