Asthma coming back in adulthood

[river_valley]

Does anyone know the statistics and percentages for this? What percentage of adults who had childhood asthma eventually relapse?

[Beth_19]

I don't know the statistics but I know I am one of them. I had childhood asthma which eased during my teens and I stopped having inhalers completely in my late teens. Last year April 2016) after over ten years symptom free I had three severe asthma attacks and I am now back on inhalers. My asthma was triggered by a combination of a virus which I struggled to shake had it for over three months off and on and also home renovations.

[Hidden]

Hi river_valley

Some children do appear to ‘grow out’ of asthma. But what this really means is that they have a period of being symptom free – and their asthma could come back in later life if it‘s triggered by something such as a new workplace, a period of stress or female hormonal changes such as pregnancy.

I had a look for stats here at Asthma UK but it's difficult to get those sorts of figures over a period of time and not collected at an aggregate level.

Dita

[Anthony88]

Mine went when I was about 16 after having it since I was 8, unfortunately it came back with vengeance when I was about 22 I'm now 29 and take my inhalers regularly.

[emmasue]

When I was growing up, everyone told me that I would outgrow asthma, but I never did. I felt cheated. My mother, on the other hand, did outgrow childhood asthma although she still suffers from hay fever.

[Hidden in reply to emmasue]

I remember hearing the same - like you it never happened. My younger son (now in his twenties), whose asthma - like mine -started when he was three, has improved markedly over the years to the point where he rarely needs to use his inhalers, though he does still have them. However, he is very well aware that things could get worse again.

[EllaRoulette]

I am one of them as well. It was brought back with a vengeance after I had naproxen. Now it's staying. Not fun at all. It was only mild as a child. Only had a blue inhaler. And rarely used. It's now very bad

[green881]

Me too. It comes in 10 year waves roughly for me, but luckily it's always been mild in adulthood, maybe one time moderate.

I personally am interested in statistics for some industrialized countries what the total direct healthcare costs of asthma (as % of GDP). Meaning medical bills actually paid and drug outlays. If you think about it, it's not a very expensive disease to treat fundamentally. But it requires a lot of interactions and every interaction with the medical system seems to have a high % of error.