John's Asthma Journey

I'm sharing John's asthma story in this blog post with his permission.

It's been almost a year since John was diagnosed with late onset asthma and, as of yet, it is still not under control.

The issues started in May 2024 with John feeling generally unwell. It was a lovely warm day, but John was cold and sat shivering in his Oodie, while George and I were wearing t-shirts and enjoying the warmth of the day. John's Apple Watch kept pinging alerts at him and, when we looked, the alerts were warning that his resting heart rate was over 100bpm (beats per minute). John said he was going to try and sleep it off, but I bundled him in the car and took him to A&E (Accident & Emergency). He was triaged within 10 minutes and immediately admitted into hospital. At the time there was concern that he may have sepsis, so he was given antibiotics via a drip. However, after further investigation, he was diagnosed with a respiratory infection and treated with more antibiotics. When he eventually left hospital, he was told to go back immediately if things got worse.

At the end of June / beginning of July we were away in the Lake District, with the Opus for two weeks. During the second week of the trip, John developed a persistent cough and I said that he would need to visit the doctor when we got home. Not long after we got home, John started struggling to breathe as well as having the cough. An ambulance was called and the paramedics used a nebuliser to get John's oxygen levels up, before taking him to hospital. He had to be given additional oxygen while he was in hospital and was diagnosed with another respiratory infection. He was given more antibiotics. however, this time, they didn't do anything.

This kept going on, like a revolving door, in and out of hospital with breathing difficulties. He was admitted into hospital again at the end of August 2024, and this time one of the consultants heard a wheeze on John's chest. This consultant said that he thought John had asthma. As a result, a short while later, in September John had a lung function test. The results of this, along with all the other symptoms and hospital admissions, confirmed that John did have asthma.

John was prescribed Symbicort, an inhaler, and told to use it once in the morning and once at night, and up to six other times if needed. The doctors like to start as low as possible and work their way up if necessary. This was not enough to control the asthma, so John was told to have two puffs in the morning and two at night, with up to four other times if needed. Plus he was prescribed a Salbutamol inhaler to use if he ran out of puffs with Symbicort. That also didn't control the asthma and John was waking up at night, feeling like his lungs were on fire.

After another appointment with the asthma consultant, John's medication was changed to a Trimbow inhaler and Montelukast tablets, with Salbutamol as a relief inhaler. John was told to have two puffs of Trimbow in the morning and two puffs at night, and no more because of the strength of Trimbow. At bedtime, he was told to take one Montelukast tablet. The Salbutamol inhaler was changed to a Ventolin inhaler because the Trimbow and Salbutamol inhalers are a very similar shape, and this was done to try and prevent John from getting them mixed up, as he can't see them.

For the first six weeks or so the combination of inhalers and tablets worked well, until they didn't! John was having to get antibiotics and steroids from our GP to try and keep going. However, he's been told to try and manage, where he can, without the steroids because he's had so many in a short period of time since the latest combination stopped working so well. At the latest appointment with the asthma consultant, he is concerned that the asthma still isn't under control and is reluctant to prescribe another inhaler, as the Trimbow dose is quite high. He has prescribed something to help break up sputum, so hopefully that will help John to breathe more easily. The consultant wants to do another lung function test and see if John is eligible for something that's being done at a Birmingham hospital, where they use injections to control asthma.

Meanwhile, our GP has sent John for a chest x-ray, to see if anything can be seen there, and arranged for some sputum tests. We're awaiting the results of those.

At the moment, we're waiting on test results, waiting for another lung function test and hoping that at some point very soon, the asthma will finally be under control!