Finding the cause of an Asthma Attack

Question:

>Is there any relatively > inexpensive home test I can purchase and administer to test for mold or > other allergans that might trigger an asthma attack?

If you suspect mold, check also the bedding, carpet, and curtains. I’ve thrown away curtains because mold was growing on them. Just a couple of weeks ago I replaced a pillow when I found that mold was growing inside it, and I just threw out a pillow case that had some mold or mildew on it. Joan

Response:

> I had an asthma attack Saturday night.  It took a while to figure out > what was happening and I was able to isolate it to a single room in the > house we were staying in but not able to say anything more definite than > that – I’d like the list’s help in determining more precisely the > cause.  A bit more detail:

Do you think maybe you were sleeping on a feather pillow?  I always check the tags when I sleep elsewhere, especially hotels. Keep an inhaler in your car if you don’t want to carry one.  Unless it would cook it there like it would here. Kathy

Response:

Were you sellping on your back in the bedroom and on your side on the sofa?

Response:

I had an asthma attack Saturday night.  It took a while to figure out what was happening and I was able to isolate it to a single room in the house we were staying in but not able to say anything more definite than that – I’d like the list’s help in determining more precisely the cause.  A bit more detail: I was staying at my in-laws house in a room my wife and I have stayed in many times before.  I was very tired so I just went in and quickly fell asleep but I awoke shortly thereafter feeling like someone was sitting on my chest.  (The rest of my night’s sleep happened on a much too small sofa in their living room.)  Because I had been feeling so good of late, I did not bring my rescue inhaler, which I surely would have used.  I all but walked out the door to head for the local ER but when changing rooms helped, I decided to tough it out and was actually breathing pretty well by morning.  I had taken all my other medicines (Advair, Singulair, etc.) according to schedule, including having taken Advair just a few hours prior to the asthma attack. Many other factors were present and I’m pretty sure they added to my woes but the fact that walking into that room would trigger breathing difficulty remains – it was quite pronounced when I tested it while awake, even the next morning. Mitigating factors were many, all things different from the usual for me, and I include them here in the interest of completeness: I was not sleeping in HEPA-filtered air, I had spent 6 hours earlier in the day in the home of a dog owner, the air was extremely humid, that yucky weather when the temperature isn’t hot enough to really let the air conditioning work well but the humidity is near 100 percent.  I found that switching their central air unit’s fan to be always on made a _huge_ difference in how I felt so we left it that way all night long, although it did not make my mother-in-law very happy. I would, ideally, like to find some sort of test(s) that I could perform in the offending room to prove it was, in fact, part of my problem.  My suspicion is some sort of mold – the room is at the end of the house, the attic is vented above it, and the possiblity of moisture hanging around and mold growing seems quite real to me.  Is there any relatively inexpensive home test I can purchase and administer to test for mold or other allergans that might trigger an asthma attack? Many thanks in advance. -S-

Response:

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