News from the AAAAI Meeting

Last year I bought my first smart phone and I moaned over how all technology is ruining the youth of America and relationships.  Alas, this last week I stand corrected and humbled by the amount of data that has passed through the very technology I complained over to help move us forward in our food allergy world. I am on Twitter this weekend following the witter!  Taking it just one step farther, my family’s allergists, from the Asthma and Allergy Group of the Bay Area (San Francisco, Bay Area that is) have shared a quick update from a lecture regarding Treatment of Pediatric Asthma..all via a smart phone!

Who ever thought, that in 2013, as a parent of food allergic child, I would be witnessing, via my smart phone, the exchange of information that can change and impact my children’s health care?  Amazing.  I asked my son’s allergist, Dr. Joshua Jacobs,  to keep me posted on the meeting, so thanks to technology, he forwarded this photo and one of his partners, Dr. Ally Tevrizian,  wrote this quick update regarding a lecture she was excited over!

My smart phone in action this weekend.

From our guest “blogger” Dr. Ally Tevrizian after she attended a lecture on pediatric Asthma…

Asthma in the infant to preschooler age children(0-4) can be complicated to manage long term. Many children in this age group only present with symptoms during respiratory infections and are otherwise unaffected. A big question is whether to continue long term asthma control therapy (such as inhaled steroids or montelukast(singulair®) all year or to use it only as needed during colds. There have been studies that have addressed this specific question and the data is conflicting with some studies showing no improvement in asthma outcomes with daily controller therapy and others demonstrating good benefit. The use of inhaled steroids needs to be reconciled with the small decrease in growth that can occur with prolonged use.
The studies were recently reviewed at the American Academy of Allergy and Immunology Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas by two prominent thought leaders in the field of Pediatric Asthma. The take home messages were the following:
one can consider intermittent inhaled steroid in preschoolers with frequent wheezing provided that the asthma is not severe (defined as 6 or more oral steroid courses for asthma flares or 2 or more wheezing related hospitalizations/year) and parents are capable and willing to follow an action plan and communicate promptly with their health care provider. There is a chance it may not work and parents need to be willing to make an adjustment if necessary. The following recommendations do not apply to 0-4 year olds who have wheezing outside of a cold or more persistent disease. Children with more severe asthma will need daily inhaled steroid therapy as the data shows a clear benefit.

photo courtesy of the Allergy and Asthma Group of the Bay Area (San Fransisco Bay Area)

I am currently following this conference via Twitter very easily.  All you need to do is log onto your Twitter account (or sign up for one)  and search for #AAAAI and the read the posts!  Even though we are receiving sound bites of information, the beauty is that as parents we now have questions for our allergists.  I am now interested in learning more about allergens in cosmetics and desensitization versus tolerance. Just this one week, I’ve used an Google Hangou to remind me to take my medications, used the internet to quickly gather key legislative information to help with our work on securing epinephrine in schools, found dairy recipes, used Google Hangout to work on a project, used Facebook to share National Call In day and interacted with other food allergy and asthma advocates via email.
FYI, next week, we’ll hear more from Dr. Joshua Jacobs as he explains the Four Anaphylaxis Emergency Missed Care Opportunities.

image courtesy of Twitter

Happy AAAAI Tweeting and learning!

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