Best ways to treat asthma or RAD

Pediatric Otolaryngologist Nina Shapiro, MD, shares advice for parents on the best methods for treating asthma and reactive airway disease in infants and children
How To Best Treat Asthma or Reactive Airway Disease
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Best ways to treat asthma or RAD

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Reactive airway disease and asthma are usually treated with medications that are given as breathing treatments. In younger children and infants, these are given as nebulizers. So it's a little bit of tubing with the medication in the tubing that's hooked up to a machine that turns this liquid medication into steam. So your child breathes in the medications, and when they're breathing them in they're getting these medications directly to their air passages. The treatment for asthma is very similar. It's usually breathing treatments but in older children they can take what are called inhalers. It's the same type of medication that's given as a little puff, but they learn how to time their breathing so they can breathe in the medication as they're giving it to themselves. Younger kids need to have nebulizers because they can't necessarily time their breathing, but the medication they receive is similar. There's two kinds of medications that are most commonly given. One opens up the air passages and it's called a bronchodilater, and it opens up the inflamed passages. The other is an inhaled steroid that reduced the inflammation in the air passages.

Pediatric Otolaryngologist Nina Shapiro, MD, shares advice for parents on the best methods for treating asthma and reactive airway disease in infants and children

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Nina Shapiro, MD

Pediatric Otolaryngologist

Dr. Nina Shapiro is the Director of Pediatric Otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat) and an Associate Professor of Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.  As the first fellowship-trained pediatric otolaryngologist at the medical center since it was founded in 1955, her presence has put UCLA 'on the map' in her field.  

A graduate of Harvard Medical School and Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences, she also completed her residency training at Harvard.  She then went on to complete additional subspecialty training in pediatric otolaryngology at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, and The Children's Hospital of San Diego.

A native of New York, Shapiro has been honored with several prestigious awards, including the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology Award for Clinical Research, the UCLA Division of Head and Neck Surgery Faculty Teaching Award, and the American Academy of Pediatrics Young Investigators Award.  She has also been named "Super Doctor" by Los Angeles Magazine, and has been listed in "Who's Who in America".  

She has authored over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, has edited a pediatric otolaryngology textbook, and is the author of the parenting book Take a Deep Breath: Clear the Air for the Health of Your Child, releaseded in January 2012. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children, and enjoys spending time with them more than anything else in the world.

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Transcription: 
Reactive airway disease and asthma are usually treated with medications that are given as breathing treatments. In younger children and infants, these are given as nebulizers. So it's a little bit of tubing with the medication in the tubing that's hooked up to a machine that turns this liquid medication into steam. So your child breathes in the medications, and when they're breathing them in they're getting these medications directly to their air passages. The treatment for asthma is very similar. It's usually breathing treatments but in older children they can take what are called inhalers. It's the same type of medication that's given as a little puff, but they learn how to time their breathing so they can breathe in the medication as they're giving it to themselves. Younger kids need to have nebulizers because they can't necessarily time their breathing, but the medication they receive is similar. There's two kinds of medications that are most commonly given. One opens up the air passages and it's called a bronchodilater, and it opens up the inflamed passages. The other is an inhaled steroid that reduced the inflammation in the air passages.