Too Young for Peak Flow Meter?
Updated May 12, 2013.
You can try using a peak flow meter under the guidance of your pediatrician, although many preschoolers are too young to do it right.
You can try using a peak flow meter under the guidance of your pediatrician, and with some practice, you might get accurate readings and begin to use peak flows in your child's asthma management.
Keep in mind that not all asthma experts agree that you should regularly use a peak flow meter when managing your child's asthma. This is likely surprising to some parents, but the reason is that some experts think that parents get so caught up in the peak flow readings that they overlook their child's asthma symptoms.
They think that a symptom based asthma treatment plan might be best for kids, so that you don't withhold an asthma treatment when your child is coughing and wheezing, just because he has a normal peak flow reading.
Anyway, it can be hard to get kids and parents to do peak flows regularly enough to make them very useful.
If you understand that peak flows are simply an extra tool that can help you to understand how well your child's asthma is being controlled and you still look for his asthma symptoms, then doing peak flows will likely be helpful for you and your child.
You can try using a peak flow meter under the guidance of your pediatrician, although many preschoolers are too young to do it right.
You can try using a peak flow meter under the guidance of your pediatrician, and with some practice, you might get accurate readings and begin to use peak flows in your child's asthma management.
Keep in mind that not all asthma experts agree that you should regularly use a peak flow meter when managing your child's asthma. This is likely surprising to some parents, but the reason is that some experts think that parents get so caught up in the peak flow readings that they overlook their child's asthma symptoms.
They think that a symptom based asthma treatment plan might be best for kids, so that you don't withhold an asthma treatment when your child is coughing and wheezing, just because he has a normal peak flow reading.
Anyway, it can be hard to get kids and parents to do peak flows regularly enough to make them very useful.
If you understand that peak flows are simply an extra tool that can help you to understand how well your child's asthma is being controlled and you still look for his asthma symptoms, then doing peak flows will likely be helpful for you and your child.
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