What are "breathing treatments"?

Question

I have heard people say their children take breathing treatments, and I am just curious as to what that means and why it is required.

Answer 1

It is when you use a machine w/ a nebulizer with liquid medications to administer pulmonary medications. Not just people with asthma need it. Many people w/ other pulmonary issues like COPD, Shortness of breath, cystic fibrosis, etc. The medicine is the same as medicine in an inhaler, just a different technique because when you use a nebulizer it gets deeper into your lungs, therefore letting the medicine work better. They are simple and most patients like to do them and most doctors prescribe them to be done every 4 hrs and if you need to thrown an extra one in there to help you breathe or if your having an asthma attack, thats okay too.

Answer 2

When a person/child has asthma their lungs are very irritable. When they get irritated the airways swell up and because of the air sac, blood vessel, heart and other connective tissue in the chest the only place they have to 'swell' is inward. Now think hard, the airways that we are talking about are about the size of a human hair. Also, when you take a breath in the diaphragm pulls down and stretches out the airway so the air goes in o.k. but when that person tries to breath out the airways collapse prematurely and the air gets trapped and that's when you hear the distinctive wheezing sound we associate with asthma. Nebulizers or breathing treatments relax and open up the airways so that the people effected and exhale normally and don't feel so short of breath. Sometimes the swelling is bad enough to require steroids and even hospitalization. Asthma is a very dangerous disease as many people don't recognize how serious a problem it is and many child die each year because their symptoms were over looked and they weren't brought to the hospital in time to save their lives. Thank you for your question.

Answer 3

Many young children with asthma cannot use small inhalers effectively, or even if they can, they sometime need to inhale aerosolized medication. The medicine is put in a nebulizer attached to a small air pump. They can breathe with a mask or a mouthpiece, and the air pump aerosolizes the medication in the nebulizer.

By inhaling the medication into the bronchial tubes, these treatments usually alleviate acute asthma attacks and prevent trips to the emergency room.

Answer 4

This is done with a Nebulizer. This machine takes liquid medication (usually Albuterol) and turns it into a mist which is inhaled directly into the lungs. this opens up airways for better breathing. This is usually used for people with asthma. My son has to have them regulary when he develops any type of respiratory infection. This is due to a virus called RSV that he had as an infant.

Answer 5

i just took my daughter to the doctor for that. its for people who have asthma. they have to sit down with a nebulizer (a machine that turns liquid into a mist) filled with albuterol and the person wears a mask or uses a mouth piece to inhale the albuterol. the albuterol opens the lungs airways so that they can breathe better.