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A British charity report says that women with asthma who are puberty, pregnant or menstruating are more likely to have severe asthma attacks.
The study, conducted by the Asthma and Lung Center in Britain, highlights that female hormones can trigger asthma attacks.
It calls for more research to examine the patient’s gender-related differences in asthma.
Bobby Hudkinson, 30, had regular asthma attacks as a teenager and was put on a ventilator four times.
“It felt like I was breathing through a straw,” Hudkinson said.
“It’s been a battle going on for years, since I really started in puberty,” she added.
“First I was given a conventional treatment consisting of inhalers, steroids and antibiotics. I tried almost everything but nothing might control the seizures,” she said.
“I had constant shortness of breath for days and weeks. I felt like I was breathing through a straw,” she added.
Hudkinson recalls that when she was in intensive care in 2013, she asked her mother for a “dry hair cleanser and fresh lungs”, before she fell into a doctor-ordered coma for regarding a week.
The 30-year-old TV presenter’s asthma is now under control. Hudkinson gets a monthly injection at a center that specializes in treating severe asthma, which she says changed her life.
“Within eight weeks of getting the medication, my whole world has changed. I’m now taking no other medication except for two inhalers,” she said.
Hudkinson finds that her asthma gets worse during her menstrual periods, but she increases the use of inhalers to help her get through that period.
“Asthma patients are not just a number”
Hudkinson hopes that women will become more aware of the link between hormonal changes and asthma, adding: “There should be different therapies and drugs that work better for individuals, and not use one method to treat everyone.”
“Asthma patients are more than just a number, everyone is completely different,” she added.
Asthma deaths are higher among women
There are regarding 136 million women worldwide suffering from asthma, three million of them in Britain.
According to the Office for National Statistics figures in the report, more than 5,100 women died of an asthma attack, compared to fewer than 2,300 men over the past five years.
The report says rates of hospital admissions for asthma in England are similar for girls and boys in their early teens, but more than double for women aged 20-50.
“Too often asthma is overlooked or overlooked,” says Dr Samantha Walker, director of research and innovation at the Asthma and Lung Foundation UK.
She hopes the latest study will draw attention to the different triggers for asthma in men and women.
Mamm Mukherjee, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh, conducted research on the relationship between sex hormones and asthma.
“There is not enough research on why women are more likely to be hospitalized and die as a result of asthma and what new and existing treatments might help women,” she said.
What is asthma?
Asthma is a common lung condition that sometimes causes breathing difficulties and can affect all ages.
The main symptoms are:
- wheezing sound when breathing
- shortness of breath
- sadness
- cough
