Asthma – Do you know your triggers?

Doctors and paediatric specialists who look after children in Buckinghamshirehave created a new animation especially for children with asthma, to help them understand the triggers that can prompt symptoms or an attack. People have different triggers – what could irritate one person, may not cause problems in another – so it’s important to know what your own personal triggers are so that you can avoid them.

Dr Dal Sahota is Chiltern and Aylesbury Vale CCGs’ Clinical Commissioning Director for Unplanned Acute Care. She said “We want children to be able to take better control of their asthma and one way of doing that is to learn how to understand it better. So we are creating a series of short animations to try and take the confusion out of asthma. This first one is about triggers that can prompt asthma attacks and the next will be about inhalers – all the different types and what they are for. The animations are quick to watch,easy to understand and we are highlighting this in the summer as it’s often a time when asthma can become problematic. Most importantly though – everyone should have a plan for how they manage their asthma – drawn up with their GP or asthma nurse at their local surgery. Knowing the triggers that make your asthma worse is an important part of that plan and it could help you to avoid asthma attacks.”

You can view the animation on our Child Health Bucks Facebook page at this link.

As well as this, here’s a link to our leaflet on managing asthma/wheeze – which contains lots of information on the different inhalers and how to manage an asthma attack – what to do and how to prevent it getting worse.