Drugs or no drugs?

The cold weather is upon us and I am bracing for Ava to, once again, have her asthma start flaring up. Every year around this time she starts coughing - she will sometimes throw up from coughing so hard, sounds like it is difficult for her to breathe and of course all of this happens at night so I don't tend to get much sleep because I'm just waitng to hear her cough and need help.

Every year around this time I start her on her Singulair, QVAR, and albueterol to try and prevent it from getting worse. Every year, even though she uses these meds, it gets worse - she has coughing attacks, we end up going to the doctor, and she usually starts to run a temp because she gets an infection, or she gets strep throat. And every year I tell her doctor, "I don't really see that the medications help her that much when she's coughing." To which he smiles at me and says, "well she would be much worse if you didn't give them to her."

Last year, she was having such a bad time coughing and breathing, I put her in the car to drive to the emergency room. When we went back to the doctor, I again told him the meds weren't working well and he told me to keep using them. I also notice the meds make her more moody and irriated - she's typically a very happy girl.

So now we are in THIS YEAR. And it is my first time using my oils on her for her asthma. Two nights ago, she started coughing - the kind of coughing where I would normally grab her inhalers, give her some honey, and if it still didn't work, I've put her in a steamy shower to help open her up and pray like you wouldn't believe. Well, I just bought a bottle of oil called RC which is a blend of a few oils including eucalyptus, pine, marjoram, lavendar, and peppermint. I dilute two drops in my hand with about 4 drops of grapeseed oil and rub it on her chest and back. Two nights ago, when she started coughing, I put some in my diffuser in her room and I kid you not - within 7 minutes she was done coughing. All night I kept waiting for it to start up again (because it ALWAYS starts up again). And it didn't. She slept like a log until 7am. I put some more on her chest in the morrning along with some thieves oil on her feet and sent her off to school. So I was quite impressed and I'm hoping it continues to work as well for the rest of this fun asthma season.

The bottle of RC was $22. A jar of grapeseed oil is maybe $5. Ava's Singulair costs me $147 for 30 5mg tablets. Her QVAR is around $45 and her albuterol I think is $15. So $22 plus a jar of grapeseed oil? I will keep using it. Because so far, it has worked far better than those meds. And I'm actually crying as I'm writing this because so many times in the past few years, we have struggled to buy these meds. And when a doctor tells you to get them because they will help, I bought them. And sometimes I could only buy one or two of them because I couldn't afford all of them and I would cry because I felt like a terrible mom who couldn't provide something her child needed. I always asked for samples at the doctor and sometimes they would have some to give me. I spoke with the doctor about the cost of the pills and they gave me numbers to places that maybe could help me. But they couldn't because it was based on income. So Tony and I would feel stuck because we didn't qualify for anything low-income but it's not that we made so much money that I could just go buy any prescription Ava needed. I was finally successful with one of the meds when I sent a form to Merck and they sent me a years worth of Singulair for free last year so that helped quite a bit with the cost.

So again, I praise the Lord for helping us and I'm hopeful these oils will continue to work well. Because the meds sure didn't impress me with their effectiveness for Ava in the 3 years we've used them. And the preventative meds she had, I made sure we followed how they were supposed to be used but she would still have horrible coughing attacks, strained breathing, etc. Maybe some people have had great results with the meds - I'm glad for you. And I will continue to monitor Ava to see how these oils work this season. But so far, so good. And at the end of this cold season, I will report my findings!

-Emily