Rumour has it..!: We’ve all heard them... - Asthma Community ...

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Rumour has it..!

EmmaF91 profile image
EmmaF91Community Ambassador
26 Replies

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 profile image
EmmaF91
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26 Replies
Echoblue profile image
Echoblue

When you grow up you will grow out of your asthma 🤔 ..... at 55 am still waiting and hoping!! 😉🤣

EmmaF91 profile image
EmmaF91Community Ambassador in reply toEchoblue

I get told I will grow out of it. Despite not developing it til mid-teens... 😅🙈

Echoblue profile image
Echoblue in reply toEmmaF91

Gotta love the thinking 🤔 🤪x

EmmaF91 profile image
EmmaF91Community Ambassador in reply toEchoblue

I’m 28 and have literally ‘grown in’ to having it 🙈🙈😅😂

LittleMissFaffALot profile image
LittleMissFaffALot in reply toEmmaF91

Me too, I'm 40 and my asthma is getting progressively worse as I'm getting older :-(

Lysistrata profile image
LysistrataAdministratorCommunity Ambassador in reply toEchoblue

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.

twinkly29 profile image
twinkly29

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! 🙈

Echoblue profile image
Echoblue in reply totwinkly29

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! 😴😴🤷🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

twinkly29 profile image
twinkly29 in reply toEchoblue

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!

Junglechicken profile image
Junglechicken

This came from a family member

“When you are having an attack just ignore it”!!!!!?????

Total and utter lack of understanding of the condition.

twinkly29 profile image
twinkly29 in reply toJunglechicken

Or "just try distracting yourself"

Junglechicken profile image
Junglechicken in reply totwinkly29

Oh yes, heard that one too. Although my fav is one I’ve mentioned before

My gran used to say

“Don’t sit in a dark room on your own, it will set your asthma off”

She used to make me sleep with the light on.

Echoblue profile image
Echoblue in reply totwinkly29

..... or “just breathe slower and deeper”! If only it was that easy?!

Whitechinchilla profile image
Whitechinchilla in reply toJunglechicken

Have to comment here Jungle chicken😡😡😡😡😡

K8ty25 profile image
K8ty25

I was at work having a severe attack. One of my colleagues came up and asked me 'have you considered taking your inhaler?'

Hmm nope never thought of that. 🙄

Echoblue profile image
Echoblue in reply toK8ty25

🤔🤪😂x

Lysistrata profile image
LysistrataAdministratorCommunity Ambassador in reply toK8ty25

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).

Denae011 profile image
Denae011

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 😂😂😂

Wheezycat profile image
Wheezycat in reply toDenae011

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.

Whitechinchilla profile image
Whitechinchilla in reply toDenae011

😂😂😂😂😂

Ilovebunnies profile image
Ilovebunnies

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"

Lysistrata profile image
LysistrataAdministratorCommunity Ambassador

Turmeric. Cures all apparently.

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.

hilary39 profile image
hilary39

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.

utkmybrthawy profile image
utkmybrthawy

Black seed oil, garlic and winning a jackpot (I made up that last one)

Ayeup profile image
Ayeup

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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