I have really bad asthma and sometimes when
it really acts up I have to sleep overnight
at the hospital to get better.
Are there any new medicines to
help treat my asthma so that I don't
have to sleep overnight again.
(soft music)
- Thank you for such a great question.
I know it's never fun to have to sleep in the hospital,
especially you're not feeling good with your asthma.
You shouldn't feel alone.
It's one of the most common reasons why kids actually have to sleep in the hospital.
We do know that many kids can get better with their asthma
from just getting breathing treatments.
However, some of the children who are having the hardest time
breathing need to receive an intravenous,
which is a straw that goes in the vein to give
more powerful medications.
What we did in our research was we looked to see is there
an inhaled treatment that works as well as the intravenous.
We designed a study of over 800 children
across seven centers in Canada, including CHEO.
One group received an inhaled magnesium treatment,
the other group received an inhaled placebo.
What we found was the children in both groups did the same.
So while this research did not find that the inhaled medicine
would prevent in a hospital stay.
We are always working at CHEO to make new discoveries
to make you feel better as
quickly and as safely as we can.