Asthma – Specialist Care
By editor | October 31, 2007
Does your child need to see an asthma specialist? This depends on severity. If your child’s asthma is at Step 3 or higher and requires daily preventative medicine, or if your child is under five years old, it is probably a good idea to work with a specialist, especially when designing the original treatment plan. It may be useful for children whose asthma is at Step 2 to see an asthma specialist as well; for instance, if their symptoms are not responding to the treatment plan or for advice about whether treatment should be changed. Pediatricians who specialize in asthma are usually pediatric pulmonologists (lung specialists) or pediatric allergists (allergy specialists). They have had advanced training and are highly experienced in treating asthma. Studies have shown that children who see asthma specialists are less likely to end up in the emergency room and hospital with severe flares. Asthma specialists are very familiar with the best practice guidelines for treating asthma and with the latest research.
If your pediatrician suspects your child has asthma, you may be referred to a specialist right away, especially if the asthma is severe, if the doctor can’t do spirometry in the office, or if the child is under age three. There are several other good reasons to see a specialist as part of diagnosing asthma:
- The child has had a life-threatening asthma flare.
- The child has other health problems, such as rhinitis or sinusitis, that make the asthma worse.
- The child needs to be tested or treated for allergies.
- The child has breathing problems but doesn’t have typical asthma symptoms.
- The child is taking asthma medicines but isn’t getting better.
- There is concern that the symptoms may be caused by an illness other than asthma.
Once asthma has been diagnosed and its severity determined, developing a treatment approach is the next step. You the parent, the specialist, and the pediatrician will need to decide how to manage the treatment. For mild cases (Step 1 and Step 2) in older children, a pediatrician may be the best and most convenient doctor to follow your child. But asthma unfortunately doesn’t always stay at the milder steps. If the treatment doesn’t seem to be helping, if your child is still having flares, or if she needs to take a lot of oral steroids or use high doses of inhaled steroids to treat symptoms, it’s definitely time to see the specialist again. With the right treatment, even severe, persistent asthma can be controlled. Insist on nothing less for your child.
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