JettStream Blog Allergies and asthma are often two sides of the same coin

Spring has arrived here in Central Oregon, and that means allergy season isn't far behind. All those beautiful flowers and budding trees mean pollen's in the air, and it's time to start ramping up our monitoring and maintenance of our children's asthma.Allergies and asthma are close cousins in the epidemiological world. Simply having allergies increases the risk of developing asthma in the first place. For many asthmatics with allergies, allergens trigger more than itchy eyes, sneezes, and runny noses; they trigger asthma attacks. In fact, half of all asthmatics have what's known as "allergic asthma," which means their own version of the respiratory disease is directly aggravated by specific foods, pollens, pet dander, and other substances they're allergic to.Allergies most often develop later on in a child's life, around age eight or ten. Once allergies surface, they usually get more severe with age. Because my own son, Jett, was diagnosed with asthma when he was just two years old, allergies weren't much of a concern. But when he turned four, our doctor suggested we give him his first round of allergy tests. Thankfully, they all came back negative.Unfortunately, this doesn't mean the coast is clear. Now Jett is 7. He's approaching the dark ages of childhood allergy development. I suspect he has a budding pine pollen allergy because last year, during a pine bloom so bad you could see yellow clouds billow from the trees on a windy day, Jett needed his inhaler and nebulizer nonstop.Only an allergy test will confirm my suspicions. (Hopefully it was just the abundance of particulates in the air from that monstrous pine bloom last year that triggered his asthma?) The test won't be fun for either one of us. Allergy tests, in case you're not familiar, could best be described as "human pincushion experiments." It's a long process where your child is repeatedly pricked by allergen-infused needles. The end result is rows of red, itchy, mosquito bite-like marks on the back, and quite a bit of crying.Unpleasant as the tests might be, I simply can't afford not to test Jett. Asthma is a reactive disease, which means there is usually some substance or activity that triggers it. New allergies are a concern for parents of asthmatic children because it's a potential new front that must be somehow defended in the larger battle against childhood asthma. Half the battle is keeping the child away from the trigger, or vice versa. If you don't know what to watch for to begin with, you're playing a game of blind man's bluff against your local hospital. Sooner or later, your child might encounter the new allergic trigger, and if you can't get the impending attack under control, you'll be spending the night in the emergency room.In order to help prevent a late-night ER run, allergy tests - which can catch a new, weaker allergy before it develops into a severe, attack-inducing allergy - are a must. Once an allergy is identified in your child, you'll have to monitor your local environmental conditions and maintain a strict regimen of preventative maintenance medication. I usually rely on pollen.com to check local allergy conditions, and on those days with high pollen counts or heavy pollution, I give Jett antihistamines (to prevent allergic reactions) and corticosteroid treatments (to prevent the asthma attacks, themselves.) And of course, I always keep a suspicious eye on those pine trees.Do you have your own tips to manage your child's allergy-induced asthma? Share them on the comments section, our Facebook page, or you can email us at info@jettstreaminc.com.