Some individuals with asthma might find summer to be more of a difficult season.
Patients might be more active in the summer. Increased temperature and humidity can exacerbate symptoms.
Individuals might have seasonal allergies. For instance, those patients who are sensitized to grass, they might have more symptoms of allergic asthma. In order to decrease the exposure to outdoor air or allergens, there's a few measures that we can take.
Close the windows to your house to prevent those outdoor allergens from coming in the home.
Another thing you could do is after spending a lot of time outside, maybe take a shower to rinse off, change your clothes to really limit the exposure to those outdoor air allergens.
There's been a variety of air pollutants that have been studied and seem to have an effect on asthma.
Ozone is an air pollutant that can trigger asthma. Ozone, typically in the hot summer months in the afternoon is high. So if you are somebody that's sensitive to ozone, you might think about exercising or doing outdoor activities in the early morning or in the late evening after those levels tend to come down.
In the beginning of the summer, it would be helpful to check in with your doctor to discuss potential triggers and try to get on a good treatment plan.
An asthma action plan is a document that outlines the treatment of asthma symptoms in our patients, and it gives step by step instructions as to what should we be treating with, how to treat it, how to progress treatment if it's not working.
Please know that if you do suffer from asthma, you can still enjoy your summer. The last thing we want to tell you to do is to spend your summer inside without having access to outdoor recreation, if that's something that you like doing.