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Asthma-proofing home

Mar 2, 2010 | Tony Davis | Arizona Daily Star

Northwest Sider Brad Kingsley, who is 11, can't have more than a couple stuffed toys at once - he chooses SpongeBob SquarePants and a monkey - because they carry dust mites. Out in Vail, Danielle Sipe had her family's new home built a year ago without carpeting, hoping to minimize the dust her 12-year-old daughter breathes. In the Sam Hughes neighborhood in Midtown Tucson, the parents of 10-year-old Casey Sohoel-Smith replaced their swamp cooler with an air conditioner. They replaced dusty cloth sofas with leather ones and ripped out carpet in three rooms. All three kids have asthma. Their parents are following doctors' advice to reduce environmental triggers that could set off rounds of coughing or wheezing. These tactics, combined with traditional asthma medications, appear to help some kids breathe a little easier. "It was very, very noticeable, oh my gosh, yeah," Jeff Smith said of his son Casey's health gains after the family switched to refrigerated air. "It was a huge, huge improvement. Any time we filtered the air, it reduced allergens, the dust coming in from outside. His ability to sleep at night improved drastically." The bottom line is that the home environment does matter to asthmatics, said an author of a pioneering study of inner-city asthmatics, including some in Tucson. "With good asthma care, with the resources available today, we can control the incidence of asthma attacks with medication by up to 95 percent," said the author, Dr. Wayne Morgan, a pediatrics professor and associate director of respiratory sciences at the University of Arizona. "If you control the environment as well, you will need a lot less medication, and you'll get good asthma care with a lot less risk." Asthma accounts for more lost school days than any other illness. Its incidence is far higher today than a generation ago, although asthma rates have stabilized since 1995 after vaulting 75 percent nationally overall and 160 percent among children under 18 since 1980. The disease has struck about 20 million people in the United States, including about 6.2 million kids 18 and under, says the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the disease commonly stems from a genetic predisposition, research has linked individual attacks, and sometimes the onset of asthma, to a range of triggers: cigarette smoke, dog and cat hairs and dander, cockroaches, dust mites, mold and air pollution. Another is formaldehyde found in furniture, cabinetry and walls of many homes, particularly manufactured homes. Researchers have found links, still disputed, with phthalates, materials used to soften plastics in shower curtains, toys, shoes, cosmetics and other products. Brad Kingsley, for example, reacts to mold, trees, grasses, other fungi, dust and cats, said his grandmother, Patricia Kingsley. But testing every four to six months has shown his lungs are getting better, she said. To get there, besides giving him meds, the family vacuums the house with a cleaner containing a bowl with water, to keep dust from blowing back into the air. To discourage dust mites, Brad gets nylon or polyester blankets, not down. The family also uses home-based cleaners with vinegar in lieu of some chemical cleaning products, since some studies have linked cleaners to asthma. They have changed to unscented laundry detergent and soaps. They don't buy candles or light the fireplace. They wash air conditioner filters monthly. Their results mirror those of a study of inner-city kids in the 1990s - in Tucson, the Bronx, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle and Tacoma. Researchers put half of 937 kids and their families through a detailed environmental intervention. They gave out allergen-resistant mattress covers and pillows, a vacuum cleaner with a high-efficiency particulate air or HEPA filter to suck more dust from carpet, and a HEPA-based air cleaner to remove tobacco smoke and mold. They paid for non-toxic pest control. For the next year, kids who received help had less wheezing and fewer unscheduled doctor's visits for asthma than the kids who got no help. The New England Journal of Medicine published the findings. Although the changes made by his own family have greatly helped Midtown resident Casey - who was diagnosed with asthma at age 4 - the battle isn't over. His coughing is still so bad at times that it "kind of stops my breathing," Casey said. "Hopefully, they will find a cure for it," he said. "I'm getting better at controlling it but I think it will stay forever."