Jua Villa / The Collegian
Her throat keeps getting tighter and she can’t stop wheezing. In a panic she thrusts herself awake and crawls around in the dark late at night looking for the only thing that ease her suffering –– her inhaler.
“Some people wake up from having night terrors, I wake up from having an asthma attack,â€Â said Katyann Garcia, a senior theatre arts major, who is also a severe asthmatic.
“It’s terrifying, it’s like my lungs are getting smaller and can’t open and my body is just going down,â€Â Garcia said. “It’s like someone is strangling me.â€Â
According to the California Department of Health, Garcia is one of 4.5 million Californians who suffer from asthma, a condition that has no cure but its symptoms and triggers can be lessened if more efforts were taken towards going green.
The reasoning why going green relates to asthma is that the same things polluting the air and damaging the environment are the same things that cause and trigger asthma symptoms.
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) said Asthma is a chronic disease that affects the airways. It causes the inside walls of the airways to become inflamed or swollen.
This inflammation in turn makes the airways extremely sensitive to allergens and irritants. When the airways get irritated, they get narrower and less air flows through to the lungs, causing symptoms like wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and trouble with the ability to breathe.
NHLBI also said the most common irritants triggering symptoms besides allergens are air pollutants, such as cigarette smoke, scented products, paints, household cleaning chemicals and car smog.
These in turn, are all things that can be lessened or even prevented by going green said Kay Busby, nurse practitioner for the Student Health Center and former allergy and asthma specialist at the Aminian Allergy Institute.
“If more people were more environmentally conscious, the lives of asthmatics like Katyann Garcia would be much easier,â€Â Busby said.
Busby has been treating Garcia at the health center for a while now, and Garcia is glad to have found out that there is even an asthma treatment program at Fresno State.
“It’s a relief to know there is something right on campus, because with asthma you need immediate response,â€Â Garcia said.
Busby said that asthma is the leading reason for students and faculty to miss work or class, so it was definitely necessary to have a program on campus.
She said they do diagnostic testing using peak flow meters and spirometry to see the severity of the condition. They prescribe inhalers and medications to alleviate symptoms. All of which is more convienent and readily available for students at the health center as opposed to an allergy or asthma institute that is off campus.
But she also said their treatment program is somewhat unique because they do more follow up and also aim to educate their patients on how to prevent symptoms and future attacks.
“We want people to know and not just asthmatics, that limiting the use of household chemicals, certain plastics and using electricity to cook not only helps the environment but makes it healthier to breathe,â€Â Busby said.
Busby knows that going green isn̢۪t the answer to the growing epidemic of asthma because there are other factors involved, such the geographic location of the Central Valley and quick changes of the weather. She also wants to reitierate that there is no cure for asthma, but with proper treatment, the symptoms can stop occurring so frequently.
Garcia as an asthma sufferer just wishes more people would start listening and start being more environmentally responsible.
“Stop mowing your lawns in the middle of a hot day, don’t wash your clothes at peak hours and stop polluting the air, please,â€Â Garcia said. “Because personally, I like to breathe and I can’t if you don’t follow through.â€Â