In my last blog post I mentioned how I met some other people with severe asthma at a BLF-AUK event where we had a conversation about asthma and severe asthma.
It may have the same mechanisms in that it is a condition where the airways become inflamed and irritated causing difficulty breathing but here ends the similarities. The way it displays itself is different. The way it is managed is different. The way it impacts your life is different. There are too many differences to name them all so this is why we came to the conclusion that it needs a different name.
When someone hears severe asthma they think its that common everyday condition that every second person has. The part they have not heard is the “severe” that went in front of the asthma which makes it very different, but because asthma is so common people are very relaxed so don’t take it too seriously or act urgently when dealing with it. This leads us to become so frustrated. I can think of so many times where I could potentially have not needed to go to ICU if the Dr I saw at the front door when arriving in A&E took my severe asthma for what it is and not treat it just like asthma.
One of the challenges that people with the condition severe asthma face is that so many in the medical profession refer to those with asthma that is not in control as having severe asthma or brittle asthma when they actually don’t. There are so many terms floating around to describe asthma that is not controlled for example
- brittle asthma
- severe asthma
- difficult severe asthma
- difficult asthma
- severe brittle asthma
That is just a few. The issue arises is that some of these terms are used incorrectly and we have GP’s or nurses in the GP surgery telling someone with asthma that is not in control that they have brittle asthma when they don’t. They just don’t have their asthma in control at that moment and need some medication tweaks.
The types of asthma such as brittle asthma can only be diagnosed by a specialist asthma consultant at a specialist hospital. Not even asthma consultant at local hospitals can diagnose it as there is a raft of specialist testing and multi disciplinary input to ensure that everything is ruled out before you are diagnosed with this very rare type of asthma like severe asthma or type 1 or type 2 brittle asthma.
This is why I and others have been thinking that perhaps these extremely rare forms of asthma need a different name that perhaps does not even have the term asthma in its name to save us as patients from not being treated correctly. Maybe just then we won’t suffer so much when in hospital.
Another big issue for some with severe asthma is that we can look ok one minute and the next we are fighting for our life or we look ok but actually we are working incredibly hard to breathe but don’t want people to know. You cant see severe asthma unless you are having an attack which makes it so hard for people to understand just how debilitating it can be. How every aspect of your life is dictated by your condition, that even taking every medication that is there for asthma it is still not enough to give you a quality of life. It is hard to think that despite taking 30 different medications each day I still don’t have control of my health or my breathing to where I would like it.
I wish my lung condition could be covered by the term asthma but severe asthma is far more complex to manage, treat, control, and understand. No 2 people with severe asthma are the same which makes the condition so much more complex to diagnose and manage. This often leads to very frustrated patients and frustrated healthcare practitioners because despite everyones best efforts life is not good, hospital admissions are just part of life, even ICU becomes part of life which should never be the case.
This is why I think severe asthma needs to be totally separated from asthma and doing this could be achieved by changing its name to stop people from being complacent when treating you in an emergency situation.
I hate living with severe asthma and hate that it is so poorly understood. Maybe one day there will be a huge break through and suddenly all of us whose life is dictated by their severe asthma is no longer like that. Until then I will continue to try and raise awareness of what it is like and just how serious a condition it is.
ANONYMOUS-ASTHMA 