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At first, his mum and dad didn’t realise how serious it could be |
Even asthma can’t
stop Scott
Mischievous
 Over the course of an hour, I got to know this happy, sometimes mischievous and always smiling little boy. As he excitedly told me about the things that annoy him about his brothers and his love of sports and computer games, it was hard to picture Scott as anything other than a normal, healthy child.
But then a nurse asked him to breathe into a device that
monitors his lungs and I suddenly remembered why I was there.
At the age of just four-and-a-half months Scott was diagnosed with asthma, a condition that affects the airways — the small tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs. When the airways become inflamed, sufferers can have difficulty breathing.
Scott was in and out of hospital for the first few years of his life, including once from Christmas Day to Hogmanay. Now his condition is stable, but he still has to take medication twice a day and he attends the asthma clinic for
regular check-ups.
His mum Gillian is proud of the way Scott refuses to let asthma hinder his life. But she admits
there have been worrying times.
“Before Scott was diagnosed, my husband Robert and I hadn’t thought of asthma as being a
serious problem,” she explains.
Life-threatening
“But we soon learned it can be potentially life-threatening. Scott was admitted to hospital three times as a very young child because his breathing was so poor. We had to keep a nebuliser at home and even take one with us on holiday.
“It’s difficult to watch your child struggling. Whenever Scott got a bit sniffly I’d wonder where it was going to lead. Even when he was learning to crawl he used to have
to stop to catch a breath.
“Because the asthma has always been there, Scott doesn’t know
any other life. He sees it as normal and doesn’t let it affect him. Only occasionally does he say something like, ‘I wish I didn’t have asthma’.
He doesn’t have the stamina some of his friends have when it comes
to things like running about.
“Scott’s not as big as my older boys, Steven and Marc, and his clothes size was always two years younger than his age group.
“But that’s changing — each year is better than the last — and I’m hopeful he might outgrow the condition one day. He’s the baby of the family and very ‘in your face’. Scott really is a personality.”
You’re telling me! Like most kids his age, Scott knows what he likes and what he doesn’t like — and that includes doctors.
“I don’t like doctors who aren’t proper doctors,” he said.
His mum points out he’s referring to junior docs. He prefers more experienced staff after one bad experience with a needle during a blood test.
“I always ask doctors if they’re properly qualified now!” Scott adds.
Side effect
Two years ago, it was discovered Scott’s adrenal glands were suppressed, which is a potential
side effect of one of the drugs used to treat asthma.
If undetected, this can lead to potentially severe consequences
as it can affect the body’s ability to fight illness. The problem was countered by reducing Scott’s medication level. But the incident really brought home to Gillian how important it is that asthmatic children are given the proper dosage of inhaled steroids.
At present, patients at the Tayside asthma clinics in Dundee and Perth are tested by a variety of methods. But it’s not an exact science and often doctors are left to make more subjective decisions than they’d
like regarding the appropriate dose for each child.
A more accurate way of monitoring inflammation in the airways is to use an exhaled nitric oxide meter. But there’s a problem — they cost around £4000 each
and are expensive to run because equipment has to be replaced after each test.
Dr Somnath Mukhopadhyay is consultant paediatrician with responsibility for the respiratory service in Tayside. He’d love Sunday Post readers to raise enough money to buy one of these meters, or ideally two — one for
the asthma clinic in Dundee and one for Perth.
Important
He said, “Exhaled nitric oxide levels are an important indicator
of the state of inflammation in the airways. If the nitric oxide levels
are high, we may need to increase a patient’s dose. If levels are low,
we may be able to lower it and minimise long-term side effects.
“If the child is given too high a dose for a long time, he is unnecessarily exposed to a
greater risk of side effects.
“At the moment we decide a patient’s dosage by checking their lung function and asking how well they’ve been. But these estimates will become more accurate if we could use a nitric oxide meter.
“Asthma is the most common cause of children’s hospital admissions and the condition is more prevalent in children and teenagers in Scotland than anywhere else in the world.”
Had Scott been tested with this meter, it’s possible his adrenal gland problems wouldn’t have occurred. He, and dozens of other children, would stand to benefit greatly if it became available.
If that’s not a good enough reason to get out there and raise some cash, I don’t know what is.
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You can e-mail us at:
hospitals@sundaypost.com |
Scott and mum Gillian have a chat with 
