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The Asthma Podcast - Transcript February 2010

Luke: Welcome to the Asthma Podcast. Every month we’ll bring you news, research updates, asthma advice and ways you can support us. This month, find out about two exciting new fundraising challenges. Also, we have news of the dangers of overuse of reliever medicine. And we speak to Rebecca Sirrett, who tells us how losing her sister to asthma inspired her to become a case study for Asthma UK.

 



Luke: Asthma effects people’s lives in different ways and we’re always looking for real-life stories to help us illustrate its impact in our work with the media. To find out more we’re joined by Fen Bagias from our Media & PR Team. Can you tell us why it’s so important that people share their stories and what type of things a case study does?

Fen: In essence, being a case study is about sharing your real-life experiences of asthma, whether it’s you that has asthma, your child or you’ve suffered the loss of a loved one to the condition. We also need to share the stories of people that work with and support people with asthma. Like healthcare professionals and teachers. The main activity case studies agree to take part in is media interviews to help promote our campaigns or in response to an enquiry from a journalist about asthma. This involves people being interviewed about their experiences of asthma for newspaper articles, radio items, television programs and increasingly for websites. So through sharing people’s stories in this way we can convey important messages about the seriousness of asthma, the different ways people are affected and the kind of things people can do to help achieve good control of their condition so that they can stay well and out of hospital.

Luke: So media is obviously vitally important, what other things do case studies do for us?

Fen: Okay, so we also feature people’s real-life stories in our fundraising materials to help bring them to life. Case studies also provide quotes for our publications and reports and that has the effect of motivating people to support our work financially, to raise awareness about the seriousness of asthma and influence politicians and other key decision makers to pass legislation that will reduce the burden of asthma on people’s lives.

Luke: I’m sure there will be lots of people listening who would like to get involved with us to join the case study list. How can they do that?

Fen: Either by visiting the Asthma UK website, asthma.org.uk or calling our Supporter and Information Team on 0800 121 62 55.

Luke: Earlier we spoke to Rebecca Sirrett who lost her sister Ellen to asthma.

Rebecca: My sister died when I was eight and I thought I could use that to tell other people about my experience and to get involved and help other people understand the seriousness of it. Because I don’t think people understand that people can die of asthma.

Luke: Yeah, do you think that people don’t take it seriously enough?

Rebecca: Absolutely.

Luke: Were your family aware that Ellen’s asthma was potentially life-threatening?

Rebecca: Absolutely not. And the main thing is that we didn’t know where her puffer was because she had mild asthma or moderate asthma, we didn’t take it seriously enough and that’s the main important thing that everyone needs to know. No one knew it was coming at all.

Luke: What type of work are you hoping to do with Asthma UK?

Rebecca: I would want to get involved and tell everyone about the seriousness and even though, I don’t suffer from asthma myself, I think everyone needs to know the dangers of it. Three people every day die of asthma and that’s not just severe asthma, that’s mild, moderate and severe asthma and it affects so many lives and so many tragedies and people really need to have their eyes open to asthma.



Luke: If you’d like to take on a fundraising challenge this year, Asthma UK has some exciting opportunities. We’re joined by Dani Chamberlain from our Events Team. There’s two events in particular today that you’d like to tell us about isn’t there?

Dani: Yes, there’s the Beach to Beach cycle challenge and our Three Peaks walking challenge. The Beach to Beach cycle challenge is a brand new event for us in the Events Team. It’s happening between the 8th and the 9th of May this year and the cycle ride is taking place between Bournemouth to Brighton. The cycle will be a 130 miles over two days and the event is really open to all people and we’re encouraging a 1950s retro theme so people can dress up either in beach wear or cycling gear, really to kind of get in the feel of Bournemouth/Brighton and the piers.

Luke: Do you need to have a particularly special bike or anything like that or is it just a case of what you’ve got?

Dani: The event will be taking place all on the road so the event is actually accessible for all people so you only just need a road bike to take part. It will be really clearly signed. Refuelling stations along the route and mechanical support if there was any problems with your bike over that weekend.

Luke: If cycling’s not really your thing, we’ve got kind of a more, a slightly more challenging haven’t we?

Dani: Yes, that’s the Three Peaks Challenge which is basically a hiking event which you take on the UK’s three highest mountains back to back. So that’s Ben Nevis up in Scotland, Scaffell Pike in England and then Snowdon in Wales. It takes place between the 4th and the 7th of June and we’re looking for teams to take part in this event. It’s a really beautiful event and you get to see the UK from its highest points. On our website we’ve actually got a really good video which can show you the scenery of those mountains and what sort of things you can expect from the event.

Luke: Excellent and all of this is available on the new section of our website isn’t it?

Dani: Yes, we have a new Challenges section and to find that you just need to go to asthma.org.uk/challenges.



Luke: Research suggests that people who really too heavily on their reliever inhaler while not using their prevents are at a greater risk of having an asthma attack but the results of a new Asthma UK study suggests how this could be avoided. We’re joined by Dr Elaine Vickers from our Research Team. This sounds like a rather worrying story, does it suggest that reliever inhalers aren’t safe to take?

Elaine: I guess the first thing to emphasise is that reliever inhalers do a great job. We know that a lot of people use them. They’re told to use them by their doctors. Millions of people around the world are going to be using them and they’re really helpful, we know they do control asthma symptoms.

The issue is where people have been advised by their doctor to also use a preventer inhaler and for a variety of reasons people might not actually do that, maybe they’re worried about side effects or they think their asthma is getting better so they’ve stopped using their preventer… But if someone’s not using their preventer when they’ve been advised to they’re symptoms might gradually get a bit worse and they find that they’re using their reliever inhaler on a daily basis even more so maybe, and this in the longer term might actually cause their asthma to worsen so the issue is just for people who’ve been told to use a preventer but aren’t using that. In that instance reliever inhaler might actually start doing them some harm.

Luke: So what have the researchers discovered which might be able to help this?

Elaine: Professor Peter Bradding, with funding from Asthma UK, has been exploring this problem. He wants to find ways of overcoming it so the first step in overcoming a problem is to understand it fully and he’s been looking at the effects that reliever inhaler has on the lungs and he’s found that in people who are overusing reliever inhalers this increases the levels of a molecule called SCF and this is the reason for the problem. And he’s found also that someone who’s taking their preventer inhaler as they’re advised, that reduces the level of SCF back down to normal which is why preventer inhalers can protect you from the potentially damaging effects of overuse reliever inhalers.

Luke: So the really important message is, if you’ve been prescribed a preventer inhaler. Make sure that you take it.

Elaine: Yes absolutely, I mean it’s great news really, we know this danger exists with reliever inhaler but we know already that if people are using their preventer inhaler as they’ve been prescribed then that danger no longer exists. I would just say that if there’s anybody out there who’s using something like salbutamol and they’ve been told by their doctor to only use it maybe a couple of times a week they find that they’re using it everyday to go back to their doctor and get some more advice.