Hi,
I am new to this board so I will give you all a little background. My name is Melissa and I have 2 children, both with asthma. My 12 yo daughter was dx at 2 but she seemed to have gotten better with age. She only uses her inhaler maybe 2 x a year. My 6 yo son has severe asthma along with other medical problems. He is on his nebulizer 3x a day when "healthy" along with singulair, advair, flonase, albuterol, etc. He also has an IgG deficiency which makes him susceptible to anything that is going around. He had pneumonia last year about 6 times from October until this May. He had an exacerbation in July. He goes to his pulmonologist every 3 months now(he has been "healthy" so he graduated from once a month). On his next visit they are going to try and do PFT's on him. How hard is it for them to do on a child and what will that show? If anyone else is going thru this or has any comments or suggestions i would appreciate it.
Thanks Melissa

Your basic PFT is a peak flow. Next you have spirometry. I am sure they will try peak flow, and it really isn't hard, so I'm sure he'll get that. All it does is measure the ability you have to push the air out of your lungs. It is a small device and not inhibiting at all. I wouldn't be surprised if they did a spiro on him as well. The spiro is a tube that is hooked up to a computer and it measures lung functions more in-depth. They will have him breathe normally into it and then take a deep breath and then push all his air out as hard as he can and keep pushing till they tell him to breathe in. It's not a hard test, but it is effort-dependent, so they hold off for the younger kids. At National Jewish they have little pictures/games they can do while they're doing the spirometry (like the more forceful your breath the harder the bowling ball rolls and it's good when you get the bowling ball to knock down the pins type thing). The numbers they will most likely be looking for are the FEV1 the FVC and the FEF 25-75. The FEV1 means Forced Expository Volume in 1 second. This measures how much air he can blow out in one second. A number that is above 80 is considered great, 70-80 is average-moderate obstruction and 60 and below is severe (don't quote me on this...:-P this is just what I am told FOR ME). The FVC is the Forced Vital Capacity. This measures how much air he can totally blow out all the way. The FEF 25-75 measures the restriction in his smaller airways (I never remember what this stands for). It really isn't a hard test, and I'm sure he'll be able to do it. Expect to wear nose clips and don't give him any medicine beforehand (at least ask about this) as they may want to do a pre and a post test to see how well his medication actually works. I have this test done everytime I see my pulmonologist. Usually, we take the best of three tries, he listens to me, we go over medications and all that good stuff and then we do a treatment and do another spirometry. I've heard children who blow it out fine and they don't make much noise, but for me, I wheeze so loudly when I am trying to expel that much air that the people in the waiting room can hear it. It tires me out, but only for a short amount of time. I wouldn't worry abuot it too much. Your pulmonologist may want to order tests like a methacholine challenge and a full body PFT in a body box. You can do a simple google search on all of these and it'll yeild a whole heck of a lot of information....Hope this helps!

A six year old can take an accurate pulmonary function test.

You might want to tell the therapist administering the test that he's usually on a nebulizer, because when they give him some albuterol as a part of the test, it's best to give him the format he's most used to.

You also might want to stress to him that it's important that when the therapist gives him directions (blow out as hard as you can for as long as you can) that it's VERY IMPORTANT that he tries his HARDEST and does the maneuver to the best of his ability. This test is very effort-dependent. It's important that he knows to make the best effort possible.

Also, treats are never a bad idea http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

Thanks for your replys! I forgot something else I wanted to ask. When my son goes swimming he is always coughing. But the doctor said it was good for him, that swimming underwater will actually help his lungs. Does that make sense? The coughing during and after swimming sounds so "junky" to me.

Coughing CAN be good for your lungs, especially if there is an infection set in. The act of coughing and breathing deeply requires you to use your lower lungs and that is something that he may not be doing. Swimming is one of the better sports for an asthmatic (as opposed to soccer). You can ask your doctor about pretreating (using the inhaler/neb *before* swimming)...

FEF 25-75....FEF means Forced Expository Flow