I was born in the mid fifties and had severe childhood asthma. I had many nighttime drives with my parents to the ER and there received adrenalin and hydroxyzine then sent out to recuperate at home. It was pure hell for all of us. My poor parents had to get neighbors to watch my younger brothers and sister while they drove me to hospital, probably wondering if I would survive.
I don't know how anyone could fake an asthma attack.
There were no prescription treatments at home other than hydroxyzine. I remember having horrible restless leg from the meds. But sometime in the mid sixties, Marax came on the market. It was a theophylline tablet... The active caffeine in tea. And it worked pretty well for me. The inhalers didn't come, at least to my neighborhood, till at least the late 70s and maybe 80s.
What makes me sad for my parents is the utterly stupid theory that it was neglectful parenting that caused my respiratory "cry for affection". What a load of horse dump! The truth seems to be I had a terrible cat allergy and no one connected the dots.
My cats messed up my digestion for more than ten years, and I didn't make the connection until I moved out of the house they'd lived in. It didn't start until I'd had them 4 years. Other cats never bothered me. Several doctors were no help, they just ruled out the worst possible causes.
That's really interesting. I know cats vary in the degree to which they cause asthma, with some cats so much worse than others. I've found even at my present age that being around cats long enough will go beyond asthma and cause me to have stomach "cramps". The allergy seems systemic!
My son (born today in 1996) had asthma starting from birth, although ped docs called it reactive airway disorder (never mentioned anything about possible asthma) and gave me some kind of liquid (Albuterol?) to give him of orallly. They didn't prepare me for when he became severely agitated and twitchy from it for hours 😡. I had no idea what we were dealing with and no Internet to Google it🤔. He was sick a lot with this plus croup and, stuffy nose, eat infections. At age 2 he was having difficulty breathing, neighbor took a look at his through area and said that it looked like asthma. *** I don't know how parents and docs could watch a kid going through that and say "oh he's seeking attention‼️" It was excruciating to watch, I could hardly breath as I watched him. We gave him nebulized Albuterol. He was diagnosed with asthma and we continued to use nebulizer treatment often then hand-held inhalers when he got old enough. Fortunately, starting in middle school we had him tested for allergies, he was put on weekly allergy shots for years. About end of high school, he stopped having the issues and is no longer being treated for asthma or allergies thankfully!
It’s likely that DM was advised by his editor that he should include something Freudian in his book to make it more marketable because psychology was one of the “hip” topics of that time, much as anthropogenic climate change is now.
Is that true? We had a big black cat all the while I was having horrific asthma attacks, and this was the mid to late fifties. Apparently that connection wasn't widely known.
While we have more options than they used to we still don’t have any good treatments (ie easy to administer, few to no side effects, and affordable) and no known cure that is widely successful (some individual cats have been cured through different protocols and environmental changes but nothing that is highly repeatable).
Oh stupid me! I mistook "feline asthma" for feline-induced asthma in humans. I'm sorry. That cats could suffer asthma never dawned on me. Thanks for the education!
There’s actually a fair amount of evidence that feline induced asthma in people is heavily influenced by the modern commercial diets of cats, there is actually a prescription diet for cats shown to help with human cat allergies. So it’s possible it’s a modern disease which is why it went without a proper diagnosis in your case. 🤷♀️ The more we know the less we know.
Sources I trust is a more difficult request than it ought to be. The following are resources that are widely considered reputable in the veterinary profession. Personally I find them to be rather hit or miss but there isn’t any one resource that I have full confidence in. I have heard it anecdotally claimed by people who feed raw and cooked diets that it solved their allergy issues. I have also heard this claimed by a variety of holistic and natural vets although I don’t know any of them well enough to vouch for them.
DVM360 is probably the most well established trade magazine in traditional vet medicine, some of their stuff is paywalled but a lot of it isn’t. If you have journal access the AVMA’s journal is called JAVMA and also has numerous studies although I don’t think any of them are probably worth paying for. I’m dipping my toes into the holistic world and it requires wading through a lot of people who are brilliant and helpful and people who seem to be on the pet psychic level of crazy train. I haven’t quite figured out how to quickly and simply separate the two.
Great perspective as always Dr Gaty! Berenson's latest bombshell mined from data on kids to teens is downright frightening, and to see you embed it here you must consider the Taiwanese study to have merit
- parent to a young child with allergies, eczema, rhinitis and (luckily it's mild as to be borderline nothing) asthma
Oh my word, a friend of mine who has a son with asthma recently read this chapter of the book. Her takeaway was that in her experience the asthma attacks do occur AT NIGHT.
Which leads me to ask…any thoughts on the whole Breathe phenomenon asserting that several health problems — including asthma — can be addressed by changing from mouth breathing to nose breathing? Hubby and I just listened to Levett’s long “People I mostly admire” podcast with the author of Breathe.
I became aware of the whole nose breathing-nitric oxide connection from reading Dr Malcolm Kendrick’s The Clot Thickens after my emergency bypass earlier this year. I may be joining the mouth tape fad soon!
I was born in the mid fifties and had severe childhood asthma. I had many nighttime drives with my parents to the ER and there received adrenalin and hydroxyzine then sent out to recuperate at home. It was pure hell for all of us. My poor parents had to get neighbors to watch my younger brothers and sister while they drove me to hospital, probably wondering if I would survive.
I don't know how anyone could fake an asthma attack.
There were no prescription treatments at home other than hydroxyzine. I remember having horrible restless leg from the meds. But sometime in the mid sixties, Marax came on the market. It was a theophylline tablet... The active caffeine in tea. And it worked pretty well for me. The inhalers didn't come, at least to my neighborhood, till at least the late 70s and maybe 80s.
What makes me sad for my parents is the utterly stupid theory that it was neglectful parenting that caused my respiratory "cry for affection". What a load of horse dump! The truth seems to be I had a terrible cat allergy and no one connected the dots.
My cats messed up my digestion for more than ten years, and I didn't make the connection until I moved out of the house they'd lived in. It didn't start until I'd had them 4 years. Other cats never bothered me. Several doctors were no help, they just ruled out the worst possible causes.
That's really interesting. I know cats vary in the degree to which they cause asthma, with some cats so much worse than others. I've found even at my present age that being around cats long enough will go beyond asthma and cause me to have stomach "cramps". The allergy seems systemic!
My son (born today in 1996) had asthma starting from birth, although ped docs called it reactive airway disorder (never mentioned anything about possible asthma) and gave me some kind of liquid (Albuterol?) to give him of orallly. They didn't prepare me for when he became severely agitated and twitchy from it for hours 😡. I had no idea what we were dealing with and no Internet to Google it🤔. He was sick a lot with this plus croup and, stuffy nose, eat infections. At age 2 he was having difficulty breathing, neighbor took a look at his through area and said that it looked like asthma. *** I don't know how parents and docs could watch a kid going through that and say "oh he's seeking attention‼️" It was excruciating to watch, I could hardly breath as I watched him. We gave him nebulized Albuterol. He was diagnosed with asthma and we continued to use nebulizer treatment often then hand-held inhalers when he got old enough. Fortunately, starting in middle school we had him tested for allergies, he was put on weekly allergy shots for years. About end of high school, he stopped having the issues and is no longer being treated for asthma or allergies thankfully!
It’s likely that DM was advised by his editor that he should include something Freudian in his book to make it more marketable because psychology was one of the “hip” topics of that time, much as anthropogenic climate change is now.
I think there’s something to that. See also “non-conforming” characters in children’s literature.
Feline asthma was identified in 1906. One would think that might have indicated a physiological condition as opposed to a psychosomatic one.
Is that true? We had a big black cat all the while I was having horrific asthma attacks, and this was the mid to late fifties. Apparently that connection wasn't widely known.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/veterinary-science-and-veterinary-medicine/feline-asthma
While we have more options than they used to we still don’t have any good treatments (ie easy to administer, few to no side effects, and affordable) and no known cure that is widely successful (some individual cats have been cured through different protocols and environmental changes but nothing that is highly repeatable).
Oh stupid me! I mistook "feline asthma" for feline-induced asthma in humans. I'm sorry. That cats could suffer asthma never dawned on me. Thanks for the education!
There’s actually a fair amount of evidence that feline induced asthma in people is heavily influenced by the modern commercial diets of cats, there is actually a prescription diet for cats shown to help with human cat allergies. So it’s possible it’s a modern disease which is why it went without a proper diagnosis in your case. 🤷♀️ The more we know the less we know.
Very interesting. Could you suggest where to search online for some of that info, somewhere you'd trust?
Sources I trust is a more difficult request than it ought to be. The following are resources that are widely considered reputable in the veterinary profession. Personally I find them to be rather hit or miss but there isn’t any one resource that I have full confidence in. I have heard it anecdotally claimed by people who feed raw and cooked diets that it solved their allergy issues. I have also heard this claimed by a variety of holistic and natural vets although I don’t know any of them well enough to vouch for them.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8721530/
https://www.dvm360.com/view/game-changing-feline-diet-promises-relief-for-people-allergic-to-cats
https://www.dvm360.com/view/new-feline-food-topper-reduces-cat-allergy-symptoms
DVM360 is probably the most well established trade magazine in traditional vet medicine, some of their stuff is paywalled but a lot of it isn’t. If you have journal access the AVMA’s journal is called JAVMA and also has numerous studies although I don’t think any of them are probably worth paying for. I’m dipping my toes into the holistic world and it requires wading through a lot of people who are brilliant and helpful and people who seem to be on the pet psychic level of crazy train. I haven’t quite figured out how to quickly and simply separate the two.
That was great and loved the sly humor. It's needed more than ever to try and cope with the mass hypnosis running rampant.
Great perspective as always Dr Gaty! Berenson's latest bombshell mined from data on kids to teens is downright frightening, and to see you embed it here you must consider the Taiwanese study to have merit
- parent to a young child with allergies, eczema, rhinitis and (luckily it's mild as to be borderline nothing) asthma
Oh my word, a friend of mine who has a son with asthma recently read this chapter of the book. Her takeaway was that in her experience the asthma attacks do occur AT NIGHT.
Which leads me to ask…any thoughts on the whole Breathe phenomenon asserting that several health problems — including asthma — can be addressed by changing from mouth breathing to nose breathing? Hubby and I just listened to Levett’s long “People I mostly admire” podcast with the author of Breathe.
I became aware of the whole nose breathing-nitric oxide connection from reading Dr Malcolm Kendrick’s The Clot Thickens after my emergency bypass earlier this year. I may be joining the mouth tape fad soon!
Being an asthmatic, I can say it never helped me.
Very interesting, and the link to the history of inhaled medications was most illuminating.
Excellent read Sir! Thank you 👍🏻🤓
Great Post!
Pomposity is annoying, and today is dangerous because of society's reliance on the "Expertocracy" running the show.
I disagree with your subtitle (unless you were being ironic)
"Or: The Only Way to Trust the Science is to Forget the History" because we (society in general) persist in repeating bad stuff.
I use 'stuff' because my reply with specifics would eclipse the length of a McCullough novel.
It must be All In My Head.
♥️
What a story. Your Oedipus caption was priceless :)
thank you!