oxygen levels

[GGchar]

hello just looking for advice. My daughters asthma has been bad for 2 weeks needing her inhaler every 4 hours using 6 of her pink inhaler then using her blue. Her oxygen goes down and then up again once she’s had her inhaler. She’s had 5 days of steriods but no improvement. Spoken to the Asthma nurse today and she’s going to refer her back to the hospital. She was discharged from the hospital when she was 16 and was told if she needed referring back that she would need to go to the adult clinic. She’s still 16. It’s bloody crazy 😩

[Poobah]

Ideally, additional treatment should have been considered by the asthma nurse if your daughter is still struggling with asthma symptoms after a course of Prednisolone. You don't state what inhalers she's on, apart from Ventolin. She should have an asthma plan and increasing her medication in line with her symptoms as agreed on her personal asthma plan until her symptoms are under control OR seek medical help if her peak flow drops too far despite the additional meds/inhalers.

Oxygen levels aren't an ideal measurement of how your daughter is doing. Quite often they can be the last thing to drop and by then treatment should have already been accelerated.

In cases like this there should be same day appointments with the GP in order to get on top of the flare up and to avoid having to rely on emergency care. In the meantime it's the weekend and you can talk with the 111 service and they can prescribe additional treatment if they deem it necessary. However, they may also advise seeing the GP on Monday, noting the digital records that your daughter should be seen by her GP. They'll advise. But come back to this forum if you have any questions or feel like you need support.

Request a referral to the hospital respiratory team from the GP as it sounds like your daughter should still be cared for by specialists. This may take a while, but best to get the ball rolling.

Finally, your daughter's asthma nurse should create an asthma plan, taking into account any specialist advice from her last hospital team. It's a living document and should be updated as more is learnt about your daughter's asthma. The asthma nurse can also demonstrate how to use a peak flow monitor and prescribe one.

It may be helpful to discuss your concerns and expectations with one of the Asthma UK nurses; asthmaandlung.org.uk/contac...

All the best.

[Bevvy]

What else are they going to do medically for your daughter? If she is having a flare up does she need antibiotics or maybe the 5 day course of steroids needs increasing? It isn’t uncommon for someone to need more than one course. How’s her peak flow readings? I agree with Poobah that oxygen levels are not a good measurement for asthmatics because they can give false reassurance that everything is ok when they aren’t.

I would think gp should be looking at her, to see if infection or needs inhalers changing. It’s all very well for nurse to refer to hospital but that will take some time for an appointment to come through and sounds like she needs additional support now. If she worsens suggest you contact 111 for advice but I would be seeking a gp appointment on Monday.

[GGchar in reply to Bevvy]

so still going on! Today was her second visit to the asthma nurse and again oxygen fine and chest clear. She is still using her inhaler loads during the day. Oxygen drops and then goes up after she has her inhaler. All the nurse said is she needs to reduce the amount of blue she is taking on a daily basis. How is this helping. Every time we go her chest is clear. But she feels she needs her inhaler as soon as she does something i.e walking to school, walking up the stairs etc. but then once she has her 10 puffs she’s ok. It can’t be good having this much med can it?? 😩