slideshow widget

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Myth buster: Blowby treatments are useless

I have now updated my post "15 myths of respiratory therapy" to now include 16 myths of respiratory therapy.  I have added the following: 

Blowby treatments are useless:  It is true that nearly 90% of medicine is wasted whether an inhaler or a breathing treatment is used (with a mask or mouthpiece) as you can read here.  You can also read adnauseum, as I wrote about here, that if 90% of the medicine is wasted when given by aerosol, probably more like 99% of the medicine is wasted when you blow the medicine by a child's face.  However, I have given many breathing treatments by blowby to children, including my own, and they do work.  I have seen it too many times to deny it any more.  Surely you'd prefer to use a mouthpiece or mask, but when all other options are exhausted (or if the child is sleeping), blowby treatments do work.  This is yet another example of how the clinical picture does not always match what is discovered in a laboratory.

To view the other 15 myths, click here.

No comments: