What is he doing, you wonder??? Over the last 6 months or so Jacob has had 2 episodes where you struggled to take deep breaths and had a persistent cough. The only way to rule in/out asthma was to have a lung function test. They take a baseline, then he inhales a specific drug for 30 seconds, waits a few minutes then performs the same breathing techniques. He was to do 6 rounds of this. Typically during round 5 or 6 is when people tend to struggle with their breathing and start showing adverse reactions to the medicine. Jacob started struggling at round 4. It was pretty evident, pretty quick. The test was then stopped and the symptoms were reversed with a nebulizer.
It was quite fascinating. Usually when someone has a 20% reduction in lung function the test is stopped and they are determined to have asthma. Jacob went from 16% in one test and then immediately to 40% the next test. So, he reacted pretty strongly. However, his symptoms are not that obvious. I think he was really surprised that he tested for asthma. We are going to follow up with primary doc next week, but guessing he will be put on a low dose daily steroid (it is inhaled so goes directly to the lungs and no side effects that come from regular steroids, or so I am told.
He was a champ and did awesome during the two hour test. The gal administering the test was so impressed by him!
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