We’ve all heard them... weird ideas/causes/cures for asthma. Some so utterly ridiculous that you just have to laugh, so share the ‘joy’!
Patient of mine; ‘your asthma only severe because you have poor self esteem’
Old housemate; ‘smoking weed will cure your asthma... it did mine!’
Has anyone else had stupidly amusing suggestions (from the uneducated friends/family/strangers or from magazine articles etc)? Give us a laugh and let us know!
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EmmaF91
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I had a consultant I was seeing as an adult tell me that my childhood asthma was irrelevant 'lots of children have preschool wheeze and most of them grow out of it by age 5'.
Well I'm sure you're right Prof Bigshot, but I didn't have preschool wheeze. I developed confirmed asthma at 7, have a strong family history and didn't wheeze.
The doctors should have sorted it by now,bthey should be doing......
Yeah that's right they literally do nothing, that's why it's difficult 🙄
A friend I met in hospital who has bronchiectasis: "well you'll need to be going to the ward for your treatment" (when asthma was niggly) Of course she goes in to local hosp that does bronchiectasis treatment when she's feeling iffy - ie ring ward, given bed, etc. She doesn't get that it's not the same for asthma and that, even with a care plan, it's a lovely roulette of what treatment and reception you'll get every single time.
Same friend when I was in and just on ward out of resus: "ooh ring me when you get chance and we'll have a chat" Hmm 10l oxygen mask on my face or constant nebs. Talking really not going to be happening. (Plus I hate talking on phone anyway). I'm sure many people with non-asthma lung conditions do have an awareness of other conditions or things being different for others but she really doesn't! 🙈
I love that one about a chat when on oxygen!! Same when you are just out of hosp and still recovering and someone pops round for a cuppa then has you conversing for 2 hours straight! 😴😴🤷🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
Even if I wasn't on oxygen (which, to be fair, she wouldn't have known from afar), talking when I'm still in acute asthma stage is just a big no. Talking a lot normally isn't ideal anyway! It doesn't set it off exactly but the whole breathing and talking thing becomes difficult. I honestly think she thinks it's like her condition even though they're totally different!
A&E reception and ambulance dispatch do that too - my colleagues were probably more switched on than they were!
I guess they have to and perhaps people do turn up without trying it but really, I'm struggling to talk and that's what you want to know?! Especially when my colleague has already told you I've had 3 salbutamol nebs which did nothing (I asked colleague to tell the ambo person about the nebs again after the inhaler instructions).
My nana used to tie an onion around my neck and lie it on my chest so I could breathe it in 😂. Also she used to put this stuff called friars balsam on my chest and wrap paper around it then bandage my chest. No wonder no one at school wanted to sit nxt to me 😂😂😂
That sounds like the kind of thing my Swedish grandmother could have done. I was never diagnosed with asthma as a child, but I was prone to dramatic coughing, and once she made me a spicy drink, using cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and all spice, seeped in hot water and sugar. I loved it! (She also did ‘tying a piece of wool round a wart then burying it’. When the wool had broken down the wart would be gone, also if you ate carrots straight out of the ground your nose would fall off. Etc.) A friend also told me, in jest, that to get rid of a terrible cough I had I should smear the soles of my feet in sheep’s fat, and have a cloth soaked in turpentine on my head, or some such. I declined, of course as I had no idea how to find sheep’s fat in the middle of the university town I was in.
I also get irritated with all suggestions that come up here that seem to start with ‘If you only.......then no more asthma’. These universal (non) cures. I have to bite my tongue quite often.
Hi, I've got a good one - don't know If it will make you laugh but here goes. Was in a&e (brought in by ambo) waiting for doc to come see me, I was wheezing away & struggling to breathe (normal stuff for us) - first words he said was 'if you didn't smoke you wouldn't be like this ' then proceeded to lecture me saying 'I was wasting tax payers money keep coming in , if I gave up smoking I wouldn't be like this '.
Doctor: "go back to work you're just like your mother"
I looked it up and it does have anti-inflammatory properties - if I ate a tonne per day it would have the same effect as low dose inhaled steroid - but I'd turn yellow and have other side effects. Hmm, tricky, which shall I take?
Also seen on TV: person having asthma attack, 'just breathe out! you'll be fine'. This being TV, they actually were - which annoyed me but also lol.
My friend's husband once told me a long story about how his friend had deadly allergies to peanuts and then realized it was all in his head. Also there's a book--an entire book!--about how not drinking enough water causes asthma.
My mums theories were imposed on me as a kid in the 60's 😫 don't wash your hair (the cold will bring on my asthma) and she tied a bag of camphor round my neck and made me wear a woolly vest 😂. Neither helped 😄
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