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Greetings everyone! I’m a pedi anesthesiologist in New England. Over the past three months or so I’ve noticed a significant drop off in kids coming in with asthma symptoms during my preop exam. We have a large asthma population here for various reasons and it is not uncommon for kids to be a little wheezy at baseline. Even more eye opening is that the vast majority say they haven’t used their inhalers in about a year, basically when everyone started staying home from the pandemic. I’ve talked with a local pediatric pulmonologist and he says his clinic is running on fumes. Even in my own life, my child has needed Flovent in the winter for the past two years but not this year.
Have we completely underestimated the role recurrent infections have on our lungs? What if asthma is not the intrinsic inflammatory process that we thought it was. What if we somehow were able to somehow control URI’s, would the vast majority of asthma just go away?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject. I only see a small sample of kids but other clinicians I have talked with are seeing the same thing. Look forward to the discussion.
Have we completely underestimated the role recurrent infections have on our lungs? What if asthma is not the intrinsic inflammatory process that we thought it was. What if we somehow were able to somehow control URI’s, would the vast majority of asthma just go away?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject. I only see a small sample of kids but other clinicians I have talked with are seeing the same thing. Look forward to the discussion.