With nearly five fires raging across Southern California, we at AIRE medical group want to do our best to accommodate for our patient’s health and safety. Here are some ways you can keep you and your family safe:
Currently, there is excessive soot, dust, and smoke covering a majority of the Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley areas that will significantly impact all of our health. We strongly encourage children, pregnant women, the elderly, and any individuals with asthma, COPD or other pre-existing respiratory conditions to stay indoors! If you can see or smell smoke this is a clear indication that you should stay indoors and avoid strenuous exercise, especially any form of outdoor exercise. If you must travel outdoors, please try to wear a medical mask to prevent breathing in exacerbating factors that will make your symptoms worse. While indoors, try to keep fans on or turn on the air condition in order to keep air circulating.
If you are in an area with an active fire please take the following precautions to make sure you are not inviting more aggravating factors into your home:
- Close all windows and cover up any openings that may lead from outside into your home
- Clean up any debris and leaves to reduce risk of fire spreading
- Have an emergency bag packed in case of evacuation and make sure to take your inhalers, medications, insurance card, and necessary identification information/important paperwork
For asthma and COPD patients please make sure you are:
- Following your doctor’s care plan or asthma action plan
- Using your controller inhaler on a daily basis as prescribed, and using your rescue inhaler when experiencing worse symptoms of coughing, wheezing or shortness of breath
- Using a nebulizer treatment as needed when symptoms are worse.
- If you are experiencing symptoms that are not getting better, please take the necessary steps to schedule an urgent visit with us or visit your nearest urgent care/emergency room.
With fires more prominent than we have seen in decades, it is common for even the healthiest individuals to experience irritant-induced inflammation leading to nasal congestion, runny nose, and sinus pressure along with lower respiratory symptoms such as coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath. If you are in a safe zone, please make sure to follow-up with your doctor as soon as possible to take the necessary active steps in preventing these symptoms from getting worse. If you are in the process of evacuating, be sure to schedule follow-ups once you have found stable and long-term shelter.
As always, the AIRE medical team is here to attend to your allergy & asthma needs. Please do not hesitate to call us to schedule an appointment. Stay safe and stay vigilant!