I’m the mother of a 4 year old girl who I’m 90% sure has some form of Asthma. She has all the classic symptoms such as wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath, etc…. not to mention a long family history of asthma her father, mother, Grandmother, Grandfather, both Great-grandmothers, Great-grandfathers, and uncles on both sides. In fact, I have spent the better part of my life in the hospital with asthma. Last year she started coughing in the mornings and at night I thought she had a cold so I took her to doctor he gave her cough medicine siting congestion as her problem. The next time was earlier this year she had a cold she couldn’t shake he told me she had the flu and told me to give her more cough medicine. At this point, her doctor as diagnosed it as everything from a croup to sinus congestion. We have been to the hospital a number of times and in the hour to an hour and a half it takes them to get around to seeing her she feels better. Of course they tell me nothing is wrong and send us home. 5 min. outside the hospital and she started up again. Now her doctor won’t diagnose her as having asthma b/c she never has any symptoms during his office hour. I’m at the end of my rope so can anyone tell me if there is a test her doctor can give her to prove that she as or don’t have asthma once and for all?
Thank you very much for any help you can give to me.
Deanna of Akron, OH

My doc tests my peak flows to measure my asthma. He has me breathe into a tube and it registers in a small device. I go to an allergy, asthma, and sinus specialist.

my doctors had me do a methocholine challenge because I didn't have the normal asthmatic symptoms and they weren't positive if it was asthma. What they do is they use a nebulizer type kind of thing and start with a small dose of some kind of irritant or something and you breathe it in using the neb and then they check your peak flow and they gradually increase the dose each time checking the peak flow afterwards. I reacted to the very first dose so then they gave me albuterol through the neb and my peak flow went back up after getting the medication so the test was positive on me and that's how they determined whether I had asthma.

Dawn

Its funny you shoud mention that you have a great point. I am such a bad asthmatic I couldn't take that test. They thought I would have real problems breathing.

You are right that test is a very good determative test if there is a question on asthma or n ot

there are lung function tests you can take that indicate what kind of lung problems it could be. spirometry tests can narrow down to *what part of the lung* has decreased function; whether it be the smallest airways or the biggest airways or all of them combined. That alone can be enough to make a diagnosis of asthma.

There's also challenge testing -- the methacholine testing was already mentioned (it's funny you mention you react to the smallest dose of it, I walked into the room where they did it in my local university hospital and I got such a bad headache i had to leave..) and if you don't have asthma it doesn't affect you at all! There's also the exercise-challenge test where they use say a stationary bike to get your heart rate into something like 90% of the target range and then see how much your airways close up. As well there's something called a reversibility test -- when they do spirometry, they'll commonly give you some kind of short-acting bronchodilator (either albuterol/ventolin or bricanyl or berotec) and see how that affects your lungs.. if it makes approximately a 15% increase in function then it's a good indicator of asthma since the bronchoconstriction is reversible.