1 in 3 kids have the respiratory ailment — and no one knows why
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comPuerto Rico baffled by high asthma rate
Seeded on Mon Dec 27, 2010 9:48 AM EST (msnbc.com)
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I have asthma. It is so scary! The triggers are different for everyone. For me, it is very cold air and pet dander. Exercise can also trigger it. If I go from a standstill to a sprint, it can trigger an attack. I must always warm up slowly first.
I found that changing my diet helped the intensity of the attacks. But I still have attacks because of the cold air and exercising too hard and too fast. :( If it's just one area, like Puerto Rico, I think they're going to have to look at the pollution and poverty factors. My doctors, both conventional and alternative, point to early childhood respitory illness as a high risk factor for asthma is later years.
My family was poor and I was always getting sick with colds and bronchitis because of the poor living conditions. Now we've moved up in economic status... but the damage is already done.
You sound like my eldest child. You have to stay active. When he is active he doesn't have "any" issues at all. He was vegging for a few months and that's when it seems to creep up on him. We also has our house built from scratch and got rid of our cat and that helped him as well. I know not everyone can afford a new home, but you have to keep the place as clean as possible. Environmental triggers seems to be the key factor vs genetic as far as I can discern.
Staying active definitely helps. I have a great active life and I still have asthma though.
And while genetics are not necessarily the issue, poverty runs in families. The best thing Puerto Rico can do is to make sure people have adequate and sanitary housing for families with very young children.
But... with this recession what're the chances of that?
@jwhite1083
That or just "patch up" unsightly places" of poverty to attract tourism with that kind of money and make a profit without actually fixing the main problems of poverty through prevention. In a "less" developed country, in some cases the country itself is just not producing enough capital to fund such programs at a consistent and effective rate.
I had been plagued with asthma for over 50 years.
Every doctor has told me (and my daughter, who also has asthma) to use Albuterol. We just kept puffing all day year after year.
I was in Brazil to have some plastic surgery, but the surgeon said I must see a cardiologist before he started cutting. I would guess he did not want me to die on his watch. The cardiologist said my heart was fine, but said I hear lots of noise in your lungs. I told him that I have asthma.
He asked what I have been using. I said Albuterol
He gave me a prescription that prevented the wheezing This is FLUIR (fumarato de formoterol) which is a small capsule of powder that is inhaled twice a day. This was in fifteen years ago, and I nor my daughter have not had even a hint of a wheeze since.
My cost per day is $ 2.00 for the combination. medication is cheap in Brazil. Schering-Plough makes the FLUIR, They do not make this here for the American Market as they much more money in selling Albuterol.
I spoke to the FDA and asked why they do not approve this and they replied by saying
Schering Plough makes both this as well as Albuterol. and they make much more money in selling Albuterol. Then they said, If you were Schering Plough, what would you sell therefore Schering Plough never applied for FDA approval for FLUIR"
The Brazilian Cardiologist who gave me this information said "What kind of doctors do you have in the US"? I told him my opinion which is that they are only interested in making money and have no interest in helping their patients. He has heard that before from Many Americans.=========================================================================FORMA(S) FARMACÊUTICA(S) Boiled must - 20mg/ml and 50mg/ml Verbal solution - 50mg/ml=========================================================================I suggest you look into this to help the millions of people suffering from asthma'
My email address is louangel@tampabay.rr.com
@ Lou-I know I'm more than a bit of a devil's advocate here-but, why would a company spend several million dollars getting a medication FDA approved when they know ahead of time they'll lose money on it? I'm not a fan of big pharm, but their employees expect to be paid and that money has to come from somewhere. Would you be willing to donate about 5 years of your time working for free-without salary, retirement or medical benefits? You'd need a couple hundred freinds to do the same. I didn't think so. Another reason many medications don't end up here is our love of lawsuits. There will never be any reform to American medicine in any form until lawsuits are eliminated.
There are so many cures overseas for stuff we suffer with here in the U.S. Yes the lawsuits are a problem but did you know that BIG Pharma here likes the idea so they can give you the least amount of medicine to keep you hooked to the "relief factor" rather than the "cure factor" you find over seas and in other countries? FDA has always been in bed with Big Pharma. Their offspring are in every store in America with just the "relief factor" in them. The FDA makes them jump through hoops because of laws written by Big Pharma to avoid lawsuits. They're the problem, not the American consumer. We sue for anything and loose 90% of the time while Big Pharma gets away with murder in most cases.
Holy infomercial. Are you getting a cut of the payments for advertising it?
@dclady:
Really!
When a testimonial begins with something like, "I have asthma, and I went to Brazil to have plastic surgery . . . ", how long does it take to connect the dots . . .
Of course, it is possible that the trip was by ship, but traveling by airplane is not one of the brighter activities for folks who have asthma, since the cabin pressure in airplanes basically is kept at the equivalent of 7,500 feet above sea level, more or less, which maps to spending the day approximately one-quarter of the way from the Denver airport (approximately 5,300 feet above sea level) to the top of Pikes Peak (approximately 14,100 feet above sea level), or if you prefer approximately 1/2 of a mile higher than the "mile high" city . . .
On the other hand, there is a drug called "formoterol", which is a long-acting beta-agonist (LABA), and it appears in the US that Merck has a new drug "Dulera®" that contains formoterol fumarate dihydrate and has been approved by the FDA recently, in part because it has a corticosteroid component, which from a layman's perspective makes it somewhat similar to Advair®, which is salmeterol and a corticosteroid, except that corticosteroids do not eliminate the risks associated with LABAs . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formoterol
http://www.dulera.com/mometasone_formoterol/dulera/index.jsp
The basic problem in this is that there was a research study a few years ago that looked at Salmeterol and other LABAs, which led in 2005 to the FDA issuing an ongoing series of health advisories and requiring "black box warnings" on the packaging labels of these types of LABA drugs . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmeterol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluticasone/salmeterol
http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/InformationbyDrugClass/ucm199565.htm
I have been taking Albuterol and Serevent® for over a decade, and it is very effective for me, so when the results of the aforementioned research studies appeared and the FDA embarked on its ongoing series of warnings and restrictions, I did a bit of reading to determine whether any of it actually applied to me, and based on what I read my general perspective is that taking Serevent is an excellent way to determine if one has any African ancestors in the family tree, because if one does, then this class of LABAs can be deadly, hence all the FDA concerns . . .
[SOURCE: http://www.medpagetoday.com/ProductAlert/Prescriptions/18552 ]
Serevent works very nicely for me, but then I smoke cigars and drink a lot of coffee during the day (going through approximately one-pound of Massimo Zanetti Master Chef® coffee per day, made in the ratio of 1/2 cup of ground coffee to 12-ounces of water at the ideal brewing temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit using the single-drip method) and then in the evening I switch to Mexican Coca-Cola made with pure cane sugar, which basically is enough caffeine to be fatal for anyone who does not have the full spectrum of what I call the "South American Coffee Achiever Gene Festival™"), so whether Serevent works for anyone else is beyond my abilities to guess, for sure . . .
For sure!
Basically, what I read about fomoterol is (a) that it is stronger than salmeterol and (b) that it is faster acting than salmeterol, so I think this is something that requires the advice and counsel of a medical doctor rather than a plastic surgery enthusiast who has plenty of frequent flier miles, really . . .
Really! :-o
And regarding my particular set of medications, the only side effect I have noticed--other than receiving nearly constant musical instructions beamed to me by the aliens from outer space--is a greatly increased fascination with composing and performing songs about ladies underpants, which started earlier this year with "(I Want) Angela Gossow's Underpants (Ya-Ya-Ya)", which was recorded by the Surf Whammys (my pretend Rock and Roll musical group) . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecAFV-6rQ7Q
More recently, I have been working on a song about Lady Gaga's underpants, which is coming along nicely, although I need to record the lead guitar solo, which is fabulous . . .
http://www.surfwhammys.com/Im-Going-Goo-Goo-Over-Ga-Ga-11-28-2010-2-DP7.mp3
Fabulous! :)
LouAngel, you keep erroneously mentioning that pharmaceutical manufacturer Schering-Plough will not release formoterol fumarate here in the USA (it's actually on formulary at my hospital), but in your last statement blame physicians for your plight. While I do empathize with your condition, your statement and line-of-reasoning re: doctors is just as non-sensical as it is hurtful and inexcusable. As a resident in a public hospital, I can tell you that nights I have spent awake taking care of critically ill patients and hours spent on the phone trying to get social assistance for my disadvantaged patients weren't done in the name of my bank account. If someone is making money off of albuterol and other pharmaceuticals, it sure isn't us doctors.
I live and work in Miami, and I could tell you some tales about how dramatically mismanaged by Brazilian doctors many of my patients were for relatively simple conditions.
If you find healthcare in Brazil to be more amenable to your tastes, I encourage you to continue receiving it there. But how helpful will a doctor in Brazil be if you are here in the USA dealing with pneumonia or back pain or even worried that you may be having a heart attack?
Think before you post next time. You're only making yourself look bad.
So sad for those children. The one line that popped out at me was that the children weren't sent to school because their teachers didn't know what to do with sick children & didn't have any resources. Guess what. Neither are our teachers. There haven't been school nurses for decades. [one office nurse filling out paperwork for a district that covers 35,000 students isn't a school nurse in my book] Incredibly ill students are sent to school every day. when things don't go well, the parents just sue the school.
What is the smoking rate in Puerto Rico? More adult smokers means worse childhood asthma.
My grandpa, and dad were heavy pipe smokers when little. No one of the four kids in my family had or have asthma.
Get your kids on SSI early theres no work in PR
"He;s not sure It's another part of the Mystery? SSDI?
After reading the NY Times article about the Buteyko Breathing Method, my child and I took the class. His asthma is gone and he is off all medications. No more money going out to doctors and drug companies for asthma treatment.
The mom who mentioned staying physically active is right on track! Combined with breathing properly, asthma will go away, no drugs necessary.
See the NY Times article that got us started at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/health/03brod.html
It is probably due to the vaccines they recieved as infants.
I have a question. Were there high incidents of asthma in the past when people were living in squalor like in the middle ages? I keep seeing links between roaches and dust but if these are major factors would we not have seen high asthma rates in the late 1700s early 1800s in the immigrant slums of N. Y. City? Or could the higher rates of asthma we are seeing now be due to some man made chemical? No political point here I am just wondering why asthma rates are so high these days.
I do not know but I lived in PR in the late 50's and I have asthma. In the day they would tell us to stay in our homes that the DDT trucks were out and about. That was on Ramey AFB PR.
Of course none of stayed in our homes. We got on our bikes and rode thru the white clouds of DDT. No adults seemed to know or care. Anyhoo, that's just me and my experience of PR. Loved the place...loved seeing santa clause coming in a helicopter with his red shorts on. lol
The are also trying to figure out a way to get rid of all of those damned Puerto Ricans that live there.
No mystery...the environment is suffering from garbage being burned which is now allowed by the current governor, petrochemical factories, tainted water in the residential pipes due to the pharmaceutical companies, and an assault of the ecological system by selling it to hotel companies for more golf courses--the trees, etc. have served as a natural filter of airborne particles. Things will only get worst since the current governor wants a gas pipeline to traverse the Island and is willing to destroy further protected areas, not to mention the danger to the quality of life of families who will be expropriated from their houses due to the pipeline. Add those factors to the factor of massive cuts to the after-school programs and other programs that kept kids active rather than sitting in front of a computer and you have a spiking asthma rate. So it's no mystery....besides the mentioned Sahara dust, the other factors are man-made and exacerbated by the current governor and his economic policies...but the Secy of Health in PR would never admit that.
Its living in a bad air environment. Could it be Bush's fault?
I'll be 59 in feb15th.I got bronchial asthma back in 1987.They said it was due to genetics,they also said they wouldn't bothe testing me with the scratch tests as there were so many things i could be allergic to.Brinchial asthma is not oggod.Every attack I have is worsw than the last one is,fortunately I don't have many of them.Nobody in my family can remember anyone in the family on either side having it,docs said it can lay dormant for 2 or more hundred years before resurfacing which it did to me.Same with my cholesterol,my body cannot rid it's self of the bad cholesterol so I have to take med for that which is also genetic and as is my hypoglisemia as well.I was the lucky one out of the whole family to get all the bad things,nobody else in the family has any of these problesm fortunately
I have to wonder if it has anything to do with the chemicals they use to spray for mosquitos in order to prevent dengue? My husband's parents are from Puerto Rico. We were visiting his relatives there last May. We were at his Aunt's home when we heard a noise coming from down the street. His Aunt yelled at us to bring our toddler son inside immediately. When I asked why, she told me she didn't want him breathing in the fumes from the mosquito spray. Apparently, some areas are sprayed very frequently. Anyway, just a thought.
Put down the g&d-dA*& f-ing cigarettes!
I had asthma back when no one had any idea as to what caused it or what to do about it. I was made fun of at school, even by the teachers. This is what I learned over the years. Take all the allergy tests. Find out what triggers your episodes. Take allergy shots. Exercise. Keep an inhailor and work out. Open the windows. You won't die. Aclimate yourself to cold weather and hot weather. Try moving to a new climate. Avoid flu and colds. Tell everyone to keep their sick kids and selves at home. Do breathing exercises and run when you can. Avoid cleaning supplies, use natural, and avoid chemicals on the farm. Don't waste your life staying in the house cause Mama thinks you'll die if you live normally. Keep down the weight and eat right. Your body will love you.
All the Puerto Rican people I know here in the USA like to use scented things - candles, fabric softener, air freshener, etc. It gives people asthma. If they are doing the same thing in Puerto Rico, it could be the root of the problem. My Puerto Rican neighbors used so much scent it would come into my apartment, giving me asthma and they wondered why their son had asthma attackes all the time.
Interesting observation. I am from the Island, and I agree. We use a lot of perfume.
LouAngel, you keep erroneously mentioning that pharmaceutical manufacturer Schering-Plough will not release formoterol fumarate here in the USA (it's actually on formulary at my hospital), but in your last statement blame physicians for your plight. While I do empathize with your condition, your statement and line-of-reasoning re: doctors is just as non-sensical as it is hurtful and inexcusable. As a resident in a public hospital, I can tell you that nights I have spent awake taking care of critically ill patients and hours spent on the phone trying to get social assistance for my disadvantaged patients weren't done in the name of my bank account. If someone is making money off of albuterol and other pharmaceuticals, it sure isn't us doctors.
I live and work in Miami, and I could tell you some tales about how dramatically mismanaged by Brazilian doctors many of my patients were for relatively simple conditions.
If you find healthcare in Brazil to be more amenable to your tastes, I encourage you to continue receiving it there. But how helpful will a doctor in Brazil be if you are here in the USA dealing with pneumonia or back pain or even worried that you may be having a heart attack?
Think before you post next time. You're only making yourself look bad.
This is no mystery. Asthma is caused by allergy in particular molds. Puerto Rico in years past had buildings without air conditioning. We had the same in Florida. Improper construction, high humidity, and water condensing on gypsum board create runaway mold.Buildings here in Florida here are full of the stuff. This is rarely abated properly. The only way to kill mold is with liquid nitrogen. Scrubbing with bleach only spreads spores. Kids are very sensitive to mold. In Florida A/C caused so many allergies that I no longer use it EVER! Get rid of the A/C and you get rid of asthma.
Houses in P.R. don't have gypsum board. They use cinder block and steel-reinforced concrete.
As a severe USA asthmatic, I certainly hope the cause of the asthma prevalent is investigated thoroughly...it may be to late for me...but would be a great gift to the world!
RESPIRATORY PROBLEMS
In the summer of 2004 Argentina or ? announced rainfall with rain drops measuring one cm. in size (big).
In 2003 I presented a paper announcing that atmosphere (air) does not move and wind is repelling or expanding air molecules. This announcement explains and demonstrates how an atmospheric cell has its molecules repelling each other creating what appears to be moving air. The cell will then recover; it’s now attracting molecules creating calm air. Orbiting cell molecules or nuclei have a speed influenced by the Earth’s magnetic force; this determines the domain or size of the cell.
In a paper I announced how the lungs of our bodies really work. The crux of this being that inhaled air is restricted and cooled producing water. The water is then heated producing oxygen.
We live in a subtly changing world and diminishing magnetic strength is influencing larger cells that create larger things. Our lungs are trying to cope with these larger air cells. The natural species of man is coming to an end (extinction). However, the species man is a container for another species called brain which will enable him to artificially exist!
At about this time you’re thinking, “Yes, Bruce, but what good is your science if all you’re doing is making us uncomfortable, having us think about doom and gloom.” Well, let me say this, once you know my science your brain can determine that your child is suffering with what is named Asthma and they or them are slowly killing your child with poison. Knowing my science you will wonder how you would go about reducing the size of air cells causing Asthma. Thinking about this you determine that next time Johnny has an attack you will reduce the size of air cells by causing a chaotic reaction. This is you take Johnny and sit him down in front of the fan. Wow, it works! Now, how are you going to get rich? Little portable battery operated pocket fans. Oh, oh – protection, oh yes, patent. It’s not your fault that the patent process is so slow allowing all those kids to suffer!!! “Guilty”, Hell no, you were just diagnosed with a terminal disease and this will financially help you get through it. Oh, by the by, there is a guy just down the street who has discovered something that can cure you – too bad that he is greedy too!
bruce voigt crop circles
Hey I'm a Puerto Rican with asthma lol. I'm from Ciales and Puerto Rico is VERY humid. Could have something to do with it.
I have asthma and the doctors believe it was from living with two parents who each smoked two packs a day. As a kid, I was constantly sick and allergic to all kinds of environmental stuff. I started getting better once I moved out of my parents house. Their habit killed them both.