Hello - I'm new to the forum

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the forum. I'll do a little intro, as I know most forums like newbies to do that - I'm Emma, I'm 30, married to Sean since Oct 2011 and we have two dogs, Jake and Jasper who keep us busy and entertained! ""Cinnamon"" is my nickname from work based on my married surname. I'm an IT Technician for an Infrastructure Charity.

I was diagnosed with asthma when I was 7, always been relatively well controlled over the years - usual combo of Flixatide/Serevent and then Seretide. Was on Montelukast between the ages of 16-23 but the asthma nurse took me off it. I have eczema and hayfever, also.

Had a bad flare up these past couple of weeks. Started as a cold which hubby gave me, dropped into my chest as they have a habit of doing and became a chest infection. Asthma went to pot - I regularly sounded like Darth Vader and coughed so much I pulled a muscle in my chest. I don't appear to wheeze very much, although I did as a child.

Hubby ended up phoning 999 on Sunday 19th for me, as I'd been fairly bad all day, but went into a prolonged coughing fit and was really struggling to breathe. H was scared. Can't fault the paramedics, they were lovely, got us hooked up to a neb and whisked us off to A&E. They let us go in the early hours of the morning after being on the neb on the understanding I saw my GP ASAP.

Luckily, I managed to get an appt with my doc, and he's put me back on the montelukast and upped my Seretide to the 250 one twice a day, he also extended my course of pred. He thinks my meds had been scaled a bit too far back, and the combo of the cold and stress (my H had recently been in hospital with kidney problems and we also sold our house) just pushed it out of control.

So that's me. At A&E they asked me if I had an ""action plan"", as far as I can recall, I've never had one - what is it, and do I need one?

[Hidden]

Hi, and welcome! Sorry you recently had to go to A&E but glad that you got some good paramedics and sounds like you had a generally good experience!

An action plan is basically a bit of paper telling you what you do under different circumstances. There are ""zones"" green, where you should be most of the time with well controlled asthma, Amber/orange where you might need to up medication, or contact GP or something like that and red where you shouldnt stay too long without getting help. I'm sure your GP practice will have some and if not if you look around on AUK they have them (maybe in shop at the top). Most are based on peak flow, but i know a few on here, myself included have pretty non-variable peak flow even when they are symptomatic, by the time im near 50% of PB (where the red zone usually starts) Im already really really struggling. So some people have symptom based ones, or ones that go by how much reliever is used etc. In theory all asthmatics should have one, in practice it rarely works that way. I *think* most are done by asthma nurses, certainly mine always have been, although currently i dont have a plan (i think currently they think that if i have started to wonder if maybe, possibly, almost i should just see my GP or something just to get checked out then its probably time i go to A&E lol!)

I know montelukast really benefits some people, so hopefully once that kicks in you'll be feeling bask to normal pretty soon! Hopefully you wont have to go back to A&E that way (no-one likes A&E!!). Plus if you were reasonably well controlled on seretide before then a higher dose will probably really work well for you! Stress is a bit of an annoying one as there is so little you can do about it!! sigh!

Anyway, welcome to the boards, and id have an explore of the whole site, theres loads of info around

Soph x

[Hidden]

Hello Cinnamon, like you I am new to the forum but I am also new to Asthma. I have a handy little app on my phone called My Asthma log. You can list your meds, trips to GP, action plans (it has green, amber & red zones & advice on what to do) and emergency contacts etc. I find it useful if I've needed to go to the GP as I can put notes on, what meds were prescribed etc.

I hope your symptoms become more controlled soon, good luck x

[Hidden]

Hi guys,

Many thanks for the nice welcome!

Yes, I did have a positive experience at A&E, but definitely do not want to go there again!! Certainly an experience I don't want to repeat.

I'm due to see the nurse in a couple of weeks to see how the new medication is working, not sure if she's an asthma nurse though. I'll ask about the action plan then, as it sounds like it could be useful, if not for me but for my husband.

Thanks for the app recommendation - downloaded it this afternoon and spent a bit of time poking around in it, looks very useful! I've been reading the fact sheets on here too - I think I'd got a bit complacent after being well controlled for so long, so I've been re-reading about asthma in general etc