The best thing that’s happened to Emmy McLean in the last few years wasn’t making the all-conference softball team her last two years at Pinecrest High School. It wasn’t earning the high grades that made her class salutatorian, or even being named first runner-up in last year’s Miss Moore County pageant.

No, what has made the biggest difference in her life was being switched by her doctor to a medication that keeps her from having asthma attacks instead of treating her asthma symptoms.

Both Emmy and her twin sister, Izzy, were diagnosed with asthma when they were in kindergarten.

“It was pretty bad all through elementary and middle school,” says their mother, Anne. “I was probably called to school at least once a week to pick up one of them and take her to the doctor, and they missed a lot of school. We really struggled with this as a family.”

Emmy recalls that having asthma as a child was “pretty awful.” She had to use an inhaler at least once a day for years. Inhalers deliver drugs in the form of a spray that opens the airways so the patient can breathe more easily.

When the McLean girls were 13 or 14, Izzy began having fewer and less serious asthma attacks, but Emmy’s asthma didn’t get any better. In elementary school, she says, “I was actually a little embarrassed, because whenever we did any running, I always came in last.”

Then, about four years ago, she began taking the drug that prevents asthma attacks. Within a month, her running speed and endurance had increased dramatically.

“The difference was amazing,” her mother says. “She felt so much better, and her whole outlook improved. It really changed her life.” Now a sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Emmy Asthma is the most common chronic condition in children and the leading cause of childhood hospitalizations nationwide. A program of preventive care spearheaded by Sandhills Pediatrics has greatly reduced the number of emergency room visits and hospital admissions due to asthma attacks. In fact, the rate of hospitalization for children with asthma is lower in Moore County than in any other county in the region and is far below the state average. According to Dr. Boals, the key to good asthma care is to focus on preventing attacks instead of treating them after they occur.

Both Izzy (left) and Emmy McLean were diagnosed with asthma when they were in kindergarten. As they grew up Izzy began having fewer and less serious attacks, but Emmy’s asthma didn’t get any better. She now takes medication that prevents asthma attacks.

“Using an inhaler to stop an attack is like treating strep throat with Tylenol,” he says. “It’s treating the symptoms but not the disease.”

By using the drug that prevents attacks, as Emmy McLean does, “Kids can go from being chronically sick to healthy and normal,”

Dr. Boals says. “With rare exceptions, there is no reason why a child or adolescent with asthma shouldn’t feel good and be able to play sports or do whatever they want.” Dr. Boals knows, however, that prescribing medicine is one thing, getting kids to take it when they are supposed to is another.

“That’s why it’s critical to get parents to be partners in care,” he says. “They need to understand the importance of preventive treatment and make sure their kids take their medicine routinely.”

Helping kids in child care
If kids with asthma go to a child-care facility in Moore County, their parents and the facility’s staff have some help. Lynn Agee, R.N., provides information and advice on health and safety to all of the county’s child-care facilities. Her role as child-care health consultant is a collaborative service of FirstHealth and Partners for Children and Families, the local SmartStart program.

Agee educates child-care providers on everything from sanitation to caring for children with serious medical problems.

“It is very common for child-care facilities to have children with asthma or asthma-like symptoms,” she says. “The provider needs to know what the symptoms are, what medications the child is taking and how to administer them. It’s a big responsibility, and I try to help make sure they are comfortable with it.