Thank you medula!

For most of us, our amazing medula involuntarily manages some critical life sustaining functions...breathing and a beating heart. I am grateful for my medula!

Unfortunately for some of us, breathing can be a scary struggle when impacted by allergies, asthma, and other airway impacting diseases. When my son was little, he was hospitalized twice for reactive airway disease (RAD) - the condition small children have before being officially diagnosed with asthma. For the next three to four years, we went to the pediatric pulmonologist or his pediatrician at least every three months for them to prescribe more steroids and albuterol and sometimes prednisone. Being hooked up to a  nebulizer became a routine part his day. My son didn't mind too much as he took the time to chill out and watch videos - an activity that kept him still while he was connected to the machine. I hated that he was being pumped full of steroids every day. In my mind, it was a short term solution.

Mama Bear kicked in and I did everything I could to peel him off those steroids. Our home has hard wood or resilient flooring - no wall-to-wall carpet. We tried some essential oils. I paid close attention to what we were eating sourcing from the local farmers market and/or organic sources. We drank healing teas. I changed our air filters on schedule. Thankfully, my son has outgrown his asthma and has not been to a doctor for sickness for almost four years.

New filter on left. Three month old filter on right. Ick!

Americans spend 90% of our time indoors. The indoor air quality is critical to our health. Contaminants can come into our homes on our feet, on products we buy that off-gas in our home, on products we spray or burn inside our home, and in the outside air that is pulled in through our home's heating and cooling systems. Every time I change our air filters, I am amazed and disgusted as to how much dirt builds up in three months time. As we all hunker down for the winter months and spend even more time indoors on these short sunlight days, do yourself a favor and change out your air filters this month. Spring for the ones that filter more than sand (1200 filtration level or 1500 level or higher if your heating and cooling system can handle it). Your medula will thank you.