Asthma Community

He girl,

Stay safe. The LAST thing you need is a flare.

God bless.

Sonya

Already warned the docs office if I call needing pred they will know why!!! The air quality tanked over night. Wind kicked up the fires and the smoke is everywhere. If your car is outside its covered in a layer of fine ash. Today we had a cold front go thru which dropped the temps by 20 degree's, but winds are expected to kick up this afternoon thru Thursday which is the last thing the fire fighters need. Some of these wildfires are burning in areas there are no structures/population so they will just be allowed to burn till the winter rains put them out.

Sonya, I saw on the news there was a big fire in OKC...near you?? Terrifying how close the houses were to the fires!! Hope you are safe and not getting the smoke.

RAIN RAIN RAIN...I think that's the solution??

Mattie

Hey Mattie
That sucks about the fires, hope you can get through this without the prednisone and major flare. I hope everyone is okay and the houses are okay.

I am lucky don't have to worry about forest fires however combine season has started and they will start burning fields.

Good luck and I will praying you get rain and lots of it.

Bre

Mattie,

I am glad that you are being proactive - prparing of the worst, but hoping for the best.

The fire tonight has been as close as 6 miles. Unfortunately, we are getting smoke. UGH!!! The smoke was worse a few weeks ago though. We had a fire then that got to about 4 miles away. We had ash floating around our back yard. A friend went into an asthma flare from that one (minor by our standards). It was about 2 miles from her house.

I can relate to what you are going through. BE SAFE!!! Don't take any chances you don't have to.

FYI - I bought a HEPA airfilter for work today. There is an adition being built to our building. The foam insolation was bad last week. I have been dreading move in with the VOCs and worse yet - the connection of the old and new areas. They were preparing for cutting the openings when I left today. They are supposed to seal the openings with visqueen (sp?), but that isn't 100% effective. Also, the building is surounded by cedars - my absolute worst allergen, and cedar season is aproaching quickly. My thinking, "An ouce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." I decided the air filter would be cheaper than treating a flare. I may use it tonight with the smoke floating around. I don't know how it is getting in the house, but I can smell it.

While I am posting - update on my doctor situation - I haven't been able to schedule an apointment yet. Dr. M is at a 8 to 5 office and I work 8 - 5. I am spoiled. My allergist is open 7 - 6, and much closer to my house. I have left two messages for them to call and schedule an apointment, but they haven't. I am wondering if I will be too much for him. Anyway, I will keep trying. I really don't want to see anyone else.

Well, that is all for now. Work tomorrow.

Take care and God bless.

Sonya

Mattie,

The evacuation zone starts one mile from us tonight. It shouldn't come our direction though.

Sonya

Sonya,

That is WAY TOO CLOSE for comfort. Hope the fire heads the other direction!

We are probably a good half hour drive from the closest fires...we sit in the foothills so most of the fires are either out on the high desert or in the forests themselves.

Today we have a light haze and you can smell smoke but its not as smokey as it was due to winds shifting the other direction--the sky looks blue at least. This will pretty much be the norm until they get the fires out or the rains begin in the fall.

Lungs are holding their own but still keeping up the nebs as I so do not want pred.

Stay safe and indoors...I run the hepa filters inside which really helps keep the smoke out of the house. We notice smoke odors in the house close to the exhaust/kitchen vents...if you find that is the case run those fans for a minute or two--but not longer as that then creates a vacuum which pulls more smoke in. Just opening and closing the outside doors lets in a lot of smoke.

Mattie

Thank you for the advice.

So much for staying inside though. I absolutely HAD to take my daughter to enroll in a class tonight (homeschool science with enrollment tonight ONLY). My car broke down 1 mile west of our house so the fire was 2 miles east of the break down. Hot, dry, start of rag weed season, smoke and exhaust, add in a little stress... yeah you all get the picture. Not pretty... especially when the policeman was about to push me out of the way and I had to jump out of the car and tell my husband to get in so I could take care of the situation that had developed. Still a little tight. I think a neb is in order tonight, and the HEPA will be turned on.

I think things are a lot better today with the fires though. There wasn't a big flare up this afternoon like there was yesterday.

I usually take the interstate home from work, but I could see the smoke (thin, hazy looking layer) hovering over it and took a different parrallel route. I told my husband that something was wrong with the car when I got home. It was "slipping" on hills (most likely the transmition). I didn't think it was THAT immediate of a problem though.

I am very glad that it was tonight and not tomorrow morning making me late for work. God is good. Sometimes you just have to look for His finger print of provision in the bad times.

Take care and God bless.

Sonya

Thank you for the post. We had fires where I live for the about six weeks. Once, when going to the pharmacist for pred, I said, "I just can't imagine what could be the trigger? Can you?" She laughed. There was so much smoke that I couldn't see the mountain which I normally can. My eyes were hurting just walking through it all, as various particles hit them.

I took a year and a half worth of pred in that six week period. I had three separate bursts, which is complicated. Basically, if I stay on pred too long I get corticosteroid induced psychosis. So, I have to go high dosage and short on the burst. The last burst was the highest dose I 've ever had to do, and so there was some risk of overdose or severely adverse reaction from the pred. The asthma doc didn't care for the dosage of the last burst, but what can you do? The blood pressure shot up, I had incoordination and kept dropping things, got pretty dizzy at times.

I was living in an apartment with a swamp cooler, and learned more of how they work. Evidently, they work by pulling in a lot of air from outside, then you have the window open so the air can go back outside. I researched refrigerated air, and it takes air from inside, exposes it to a coolant, then puts it back inside. Seemed reasonable to me to move into refrigerated air. So, that I did, and now my lungs are happy. It only took about five days of refrigerated air for the lungies to say, "thanks".

The fires here have calmed down as the monsoon rains have come. Hope they have for you all as well.

Fire-wise things here in the Pacific NW have remained much the same...high winds, high heat and dry conditions. We have one complex of fires that has burned over 107,000 acres and is still burning strong. Another has burned 7000 acres and its in steep terrain so water drops are really all they can do to contain it...it will continue to burn until the rain/snow comes to the mountains. Its in the mountains so no structures are affected so they basically monitor and wait for winter moisture.

We have had nearly a month of smoke...we get a few days where the air is clear, or at least clearer, and then the wind shifts and its back to smoke. Particulate counts are still up.

So far, knock on wood, the doubled inhaled steroid has done the trick. I have a bit of a cough, but it lessens on the days we get better air, and its not getting any worse. So for now we hope for winter and soon!!!


Mattie

Hi Mattie. It is good to hear that you are holding your own and that the smoke is not having too bad of an effect on you.

Are you running a good air filter when you get to stay in doors? I will update my Aspirin thread later.

The fires are out here for now. YAY!!! We are still in a burn ban and at high risk for fires. We are supposed to have a cold from come through tonight which may bring some really good rain. We need the rain, but part of me is really enjoying the fact that ragweed season is not quite as bad as usual because of the lack of rain.

God bless.
Sonya

I hope the fires go out soon.