When we were much younger, my brother had awful asthma.
I remember many nights that the entire family was woken up because he couldn’t breathe. We would try to hook him up to his nebulizer, which was supposed to force medicine into his lungs and open his air ways. However, normally it’s just made a lot of noise while he continued to dramatically we use and we all panicked in the background. The strange thing was, my brother was extremely athletic. When he was out on the sports field, running around with his sports ball, he had all of the energy and lung capacity in the world. However, late at night when we were back at home, he suddenly wouldn’t be able to breathe. It was a huge mystery to our entire family, as well as doctors. In fact, it wasn’t until many years later that we found out his asthma was actually caused by dirty air ducts inside the house. One doctor had wisely asked if the central heating and cooling system had recently been cleaned or maintained. My parents answered honestly, no the HVAC system hadn’t been serviced in a few years. The doctor recommended that we purchase high-end air filters and change them out regularly. He also recommended we immediately hire a professional Heating and Cooling service to come service our air ducts. When they popped off the air vents, the ventilation specialist immediately found the root of my brother’s asthma. The air ducts were completely clogged with animal dander, waste, and nesting debris. After that day, my brother’s asthma disappeared completely.