In 2008 Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a promise at his party conference to grant free prescriptions to all those in England with chronic, long-term and serious conditions.(those in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales either already get this, or are about to) Time is now running out to getting this into and through Parliament before the next General Election (likely to be in May or June). After this point it is likely to go right to the bottom of the list of priorities, if not be abandoned altogether. 20 charities are joining together, focussing on Monday 1st February 2010, to make the Government come through on their promise. The economic downturn is no excuse not to follow through on this promise, since the recession has made it even more costly for chronically ill people to pay for their medication. Many are forced to take risks with their welfare by not getting their medication rather than see their families struggling to cope financially.We all know how important our regular medication is!
For Asthma UK's take on this please go to: http://blog.asthma.org.uk/30_seconds_with_gord.html
and for Mind.org's go to: www.mind.org.uk/news/2735_charities_call_for_gordon_brown_to_keep_his_prescription_promise
You can help! You can sign a petition at http://www.prescriptionpromise.org/ where you can also email your local MP and see a list of the charities involved, and you can utilise social networks like Facebook & Twitter to get the word out.
Please use everything you can think of to get the word out - the Government would like the promise to be forgotten, but it's our job (and to our benefit) to make sure it is not.
Thanks!
Showing posts with label asthma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asthma. Show all posts
29 January 2010
10 September 2009
Meme for Invisible illness week
National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week is held annually in September and is part of a worldwide effort to bring together people who live with invisible chronic illness and those who love them.
1. The illness I live with is: asthma
2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: 2008_
3. But I had symptoms since: my teenage years.
4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: carrying my emergency medication everywhere I go and accepting that it is a dangerous illness
5. Most people assume: either that asthma is very minor, that it stops you doing anything interesting or active or that it is imminently fatal.
6. The hardest part about mornings are: sometimes I can be very chesty early on and you never quite know what the day will be like and everything takes a bit longer than I'd like!
7. My favorite medical TV show is: I don’t watch them!
8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is:medically speaking - my spacer which makes sure I get all my medication into my lungs. Otherwise my computer!
9. The hardest part about nights are: sleeping propped up enough not to start wheezing and having to give up my preferred habit of sleeping with an open window.
10. Each day I take: 1 pill & vitamins plus an inhaler twice a day every day and I always carry another, of different medication, at all times in case of an attack or increased symptoms.
11. Regarding alternative treatments I am trying to learn good breathing techniques.
12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: invisible because I see so many people judging those with visible problems – I might lack understanding from others but at least I don’t suffer their assumptions!
13. Regarding working and career: I have a rewarding career which does not affect my illness
14. People would be surprised to know: that I concealed (even to myself to an extent) quite bad symptoms for a good couple of years
15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: that while I have not had a really bad attack I have to live with the fact that asthma is serious and that people do die from it.
16 Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: be more active than before
17. The commercials about my illness: well, in the UK we don't really have commercials about illness!
18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: sleeping with the window open and carrying a tiny clutch!
19. It was really hard to have to give up: I'm lucky, apart from the window thing, I haven't (so far) had to give up much!
20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: gardening
21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: walk through a field of flowers on a cold, windy day (most of my triggers in one go)
22. My illness has taught me: to appreciate good days, and that getting treatment is a bloomin' good idea!
23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is: "oh, my friend/cousin/loved one died of an asthma attack" - really not helpful, you know?
24. But I love it when people: just take it in their stride and don't stare at me when I have to take my inhaler in public!
25. My favorite motto that gets me through tough times is: I didn't have one, so I just found this: "To live is not breathing it is action" Jean-Jacques Rousseau - it reminds me that, despite asthma, I still have a fulfilling and active life.
26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them: don't panic, take care of your symptoms, be aware of what your lungs are telling you, ask for help if you need it, take your medication and carry on with the rest of your life!
27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: that most people don't know anything about it!
28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was: give me a hug
29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because: Just because we don't always show symptoms doesn't mean we are perfectly fine
30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: happy that you are interested and hopeful that you will think about all the people who may have an illness that you can't see
1. The illness I live with is: asthma
2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: 2008_
3. But I had symptoms since: my teenage years.
4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: carrying my emergency medication everywhere I go and accepting that it is a dangerous illness
5. Most people assume: either that asthma is very minor, that it stops you doing anything interesting or active or that it is imminently fatal.
6. The hardest part about mornings are: sometimes I can be very chesty early on and you never quite know what the day will be like and everything takes a bit longer than I'd like!
7. My favorite medical TV show is: I don’t watch them!
8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is:medically speaking - my spacer which makes sure I get all my medication into my lungs. Otherwise my computer!
9. The hardest part about nights are: sleeping propped up enough not to start wheezing and having to give up my preferred habit of sleeping with an open window.
10. Each day I take: 1 pill & vitamins plus an inhaler twice a day every day and I always carry another, of different medication, at all times in case of an attack or increased symptoms.
11. Regarding alternative treatments I am trying to learn good breathing techniques.
12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: invisible because I see so many people judging those with visible problems – I might lack understanding from others but at least I don’t suffer their assumptions!
13. Regarding working and career: I have a rewarding career which does not affect my illness
14. People would be surprised to know: that I concealed (even to myself to an extent) quite bad symptoms for a good couple of years
15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: that while I have not had a really bad attack I have to live with the fact that asthma is serious and that people do die from it.
16 Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: be more active than before
17. The commercials about my illness: well, in the UK we don't really have commercials about illness!
18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: sleeping with the window open and carrying a tiny clutch!
19. It was really hard to have to give up: I'm lucky, apart from the window thing, I haven't (so far) had to give up much!
20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: gardening
21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: walk through a field of flowers on a cold, windy day (most of my triggers in one go)
22. My illness has taught me: to appreciate good days, and that getting treatment is a bloomin' good idea!
23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is: "oh, my friend/cousin/loved one died of an asthma attack" - really not helpful, you know?
24. But I love it when people: just take it in their stride and don't stare at me when I have to take my inhaler in public!
25. My favorite motto that gets me through tough times is: I didn't have one, so I just found this: "To live is not breathing it is action" Jean-Jacques Rousseau - it reminds me that, despite asthma, I still have a fulfilling and active life.
26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them: don't panic, take care of your symptoms, be aware of what your lungs are telling you, ask for help if you need it, take your medication and carry on with the rest of your life!
27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: that most people don't know anything about it!
28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was: give me a hug
29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because: Just because we don't always show symptoms doesn't mean we are perfectly fine
30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: happy that you are interested and hopeful that you will think about all the people who may have an illness that you can't see
30 April 2009
Please support Asthma UK's "Putting Asthma in the Limelight" Campaign
From 2 to 10 May Asthma UK is having a fundraising week - please take time to see whether there are any local fundraisers.
On Tuesday 5 May 2009 it is World Asthma Day. This year the focus is on children and young people with asthma.
I was one of the 40 percent of asthma sufferers diagnosed in adulthood - my diagnosis was last year. Although I’d guessed what might be wrong with me, I was a little afraid to find out. After all, having asthma puts limits on what you can do, right? Well, no actually! Having uncontrolled asthma is horrible, as I found out, and it’s quite risky too, but daily medication and a few sensible precautions have made all the difference.
I’m lucky because I don’t have severe symptoms. Since my diagnosis I feel healthier, happier, more active and have even discovered gardening! I know that my asthma won’t get in my way and that, as long as I take it seriously, it won’t define who I am.
1 million kids in the UK have asthma, but one third say they don’t know what to do if they have an attack. If this happens when they’re alone, or with someone who doesn’t know what to do, their attack may become more severe until they have to be hospitalised. Having an asthma attack, even a mild one is very scary because, although symptoms vary between individuals - wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and so on - you are effectively trying to breath in and out through a space that is only a fraction of the size it should be -imagine a drinking straw compared to a hosepipe!
This week’s fundraising is called “Putting Asthma in the Limelight” so that all kids with asthma know what to do in an attack and that more adults understand how they can recognise, and assist during, an asthma attack. If you do not know what to do in an asthma attack, please visit the Asthma UK website where you can find lots of important and useful information that might help you help someone else. Since there is a person with asthma in one in every five households in the UK you probably know someone with asthma.
You can also make a donation on the website and find out about other initiatives (such as the Kick Asthma Holidays for kids and the campaign to get the UK Government to supply asthma medication free of charge for those with long-term requirements).
On Tuesday 5 May 2009 it is World Asthma Day. This year the focus is on children and young people with asthma.
I was one of the 40 percent of asthma sufferers diagnosed in adulthood - my diagnosis was last year. Although I’d guessed what might be wrong with me, I was a little afraid to find out. After all, having asthma puts limits on what you can do, right? Well, no actually! Having uncontrolled asthma is horrible, as I found out, and it’s quite risky too, but daily medication and a few sensible precautions have made all the difference.
I’m lucky because I don’t have severe symptoms. Since my diagnosis I feel healthier, happier, more active and have even discovered gardening! I know that my asthma won’t get in my way and that, as long as I take it seriously, it won’t define who I am.
1 million kids in the UK have asthma, but one third say they don’t know what to do if they have an attack. If this happens when they’re alone, or with someone who doesn’t know what to do, their attack may become more severe until they have to be hospitalised. Having an asthma attack, even a mild one is very scary because, although symptoms vary between individuals - wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and so on - you are effectively trying to breath in and out through a space that is only a fraction of the size it should be -imagine a drinking straw compared to a hosepipe!
This week’s fundraising is called “Putting Asthma in the Limelight” so that all kids with asthma know what to do in an attack and that more adults understand how they can recognise, and assist during, an asthma attack. If you do not know what to do in an asthma attack, please visit the Asthma UK website where you can find lots of important and useful information that might help you help someone else. Since there is a person with asthma in one in every five households in the UK you probably know someone with asthma.
You can also make a donation on the website and find out about other initiatives (such as the Kick Asthma Holidays for kids and the campaign to get the UK Government to supply asthma medication free of charge for those with long-term requirements).
7 July 2008
Wheezy come, wheezy go?
I’VE never been one to run to the doctor’s at the first sign of a sneeze. In fact, I could manage for years without going near the place. But now a reluctant trip to the surgery has given me a new lease of life. After years of assuming that the wheezing and coughing that I’ve intermittently experienced was part of the allergies from which I’ve suffered since I was a baby, I was beginning to suspect there was something else going on.
Occasionally, you see, the coughing would result in puffing, and louder wheezing, and a breathing pattern that would run away with itself. If I’d been honest with myself, I’d have realised that these “dos” were triggered, not just by exposure to pollen, but by a range of other things like traffic fumes, wet paint and cigarette smoke.
But a long-standing, if irrational, fear of the doctor’s had helped convince me that, even if I did have the condition I suspected – asthma – then I could look after it myself. Besides, I was doing the NHS a favour by not placing a further burden on its already creaking system. In its 60 years, the guardian of our healthcare has remained largely the pride of the nation, but in many ways it’s been a victim of its own success: more people cured means more people around to need other treatment. In truth, of course, I was being far from altruistic. I’ve inherited my paternal grandmother’s anxiety about doctors. She would probably have removed her own appendix if she’d had to.
Two months ago, matters were taken out of my hands when I had what turned out to be a proper asthma attack in front of assembled loved ones. With witnesses, I knew I could avoid the doctor no longer. Once my appointment was made, I managed to fill in the intervening three hours winding myself up into a panic. What if I was wrong? What if my extensive trawl of the internet had failed to reveal some terrible disease? I could have Blackwater Fever, Ross River virus, or some other dreadful illness.
Of course, I am a typical victim of the information age. Inundated with medical information from television dramas and documentaries, the internet and newspapers, I daren’t even look at health articles in women’s magazines. Because, less than 24 hours after reading the symptom checklists, I’ll have developed four or five of them. This time, despite my legs wanting to walk in another direction, I made it to the surgery.
And there’s really nothing like sitting in front of a doctor to make you face the truth: which was that I struggled so much, and so often, that I automatically avoided spending much time outdoors, taking long walks, or doing anything very active when the pollen count was high or the wind blustery. Without realising it, I was missing out on many of the things I’d previously loved.
After a detailed consultation, measuring my peak flow each day, trials of anti-asthma drugs, and a couple more visits to the doctor, my amateur diagnosis was confirmed: I officially have asthma.
Initially, I felt much better just knowing what was wrong. I did research and became an asthma bore to everyone who made the mistake of asking how I was. Then I had a wobble. I started to worry that I had become one of those characters in Victorian children’s fiction: the invalid weakling cousin forced to spend her days indoors. Of course, this picture is entirely outdated. Modern treatments, many pioneered right here in Derby, mean that most of this country’s eight million sufferers can live almost normal lives. For me, it’s transformed the way I feel, live and act.
Rather than being the one hiding indoors, I’m now the one suggesting meals in the garden, walks to the supermarket, even trips to flower shows. I curse myself for not going to the doctor’s much sooner. Because yes, having asthma is scary. Yes, it can be debilitating. But in all likelihood it can be easily controlled – you just have to respect it and then you can go on living.
I’VE never been one to run to the doctor’s at the first sign of a sneeze. In fact, I could manage for years without going near the place. But now a reluctant trip to the surgery has given me a new lease of life. After years of assuming that the wheezing and coughing that I’ve intermittently experienced was part of the allergies from which I’ve suffered since I was a baby, I was beginning to suspect there was something else going on.
Occasionally, you see, the coughing would result in puffing, and louder wheezing, and a breathing pattern that would run away with itself. If I’d been honest with myself, I’d have realised that these “dos” were triggered, not just by exposure to pollen, but by a range of other things like traffic fumes, wet paint and cigarette smoke.
But a long-standing, if irrational, fear of the doctor’s had helped convince me that, even if I did have the condition I suspected – asthma – then I could look after it myself. Besides, I was doing the NHS a favour by not placing a further burden on its already creaking system. In its 60 years, the guardian of our healthcare has remained largely the pride of the nation, but in many ways it’s been a victim of its own success: more people cured means more people around to need other treatment. In truth, of course, I was being far from altruistic. I’ve inherited my paternal grandmother’s anxiety about doctors. She would probably have removed her own appendix if she’d had to.
Two months ago, matters were taken out of my hands when I had what turned out to be a proper asthma attack in front of assembled loved ones. With witnesses, I knew I could avoid the doctor no longer. Once my appointment was made, I managed to fill in the intervening three hours winding myself up into a panic. What if I was wrong? What if my extensive trawl of the internet had failed to reveal some terrible disease? I could have Blackwater Fever, Ross River virus, or some other dreadful illness.
Of course, I am a typical victim of the information age. Inundated with medical information from television dramas and documentaries, the internet and newspapers, I daren’t even look at health articles in women’s magazines. Because, less than 24 hours after reading the symptom checklists, I’ll have developed four or five of them. This time, despite my legs wanting to walk in another direction, I made it to the surgery.
And there’s really nothing like sitting in front of a doctor to make you face the truth: which was that I struggled so much, and so often, that I automatically avoided spending much time outdoors, taking long walks, or doing anything very active when the pollen count was high or the wind blustery. Without realising it, I was missing out on many of the things I’d previously loved.
After a detailed consultation, measuring my peak flow each day, trials of anti-asthma drugs, and a couple more visits to the doctor, my amateur diagnosis was confirmed: I officially have asthma.
Initially, I felt much better just knowing what was wrong. I did research and became an asthma bore to everyone who made the mistake of asking how I was. Then I had a wobble. I started to worry that I had become one of those characters in Victorian children’s fiction: the invalid weakling cousin forced to spend her days indoors. Of course, this picture is entirely outdated. Modern treatments, many pioneered right here in Derby, mean that most of this country’s eight million sufferers can live almost normal lives. For me, it’s transformed the way I feel, live and act.
Rather than being the one hiding indoors, I’m now the one suggesting meals in the garden, walks to the supermarket, even trips to flower shows. I curse myself for not going to the doctor’s much sooner. Because yes, having asthma is scary. Yes, it can be debilitating. But in all likelihood it can be easily controlled – you just have to respect it and then you can go on living.
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