From Gina Carroll on MomsHouston.com, on how asthma affects our health and why Texas children are especially at risk:
If your child has a persistent cough; never seems to recover from a chest cold; seems short of breath after physical activity, he or she may just have a secondary infection or maybe just sequential illnesses… or it may be asthma. Asthma is not so easy to diagnose, especially in young children.
Early signs of asthma can look like many other ailments. And other ailments can masquerade as asthma. There are different types of asthma that are triggered by different stimuli—cat or dog dander, dust mites, seasonal pollen, etc. And it is common that two or more causes affect a child.
Asthma is a chronic illness that cannot be cured. It is an inflammatory condition that results in diminished lung function, respiratory distress and in some severe cases if not treated, death.
In Texas, asthma affects more children than any other chronic disease– nearly one million. And is one of the most frequent reasons for hospital admissions among children—200,000 hospitalizations each year.
