bronchoscopy and climate

[Guest guest]

Hello! I have an 11-year-old daughter with CF, double delta F508,

diagnosed at age 8, with digestive involvement and nasal polyps.

She's been very healthy; since her diagnosis, she's only had 2

coughs, one dry cough with a flu last winter and one wet cough with a

cold last month. She took Zithromax for the recent wet cough (the

first antibiotic since her diagnosis and the third in her life.) The

pulmonary physician would like to do a bronchoscopy on her. He says

that they are moving towards doing these routinely on all people with

CF because it gives a much clearer picture than an X-ray, throat swab

or sputum sample and can pinpoint any bugs. He said they are doing

this even with people who have been pretty asymptomatic, like my

daughter, because there still may be something there and if she does

have pseudomonas, the sooner they start to treat it, the better (our

clinic treats pseudomonas with inhaled Tobramycin, 2 weeks on, 2

weeks off, during the wintertime. What have been your experiences

with bronchoscopies? Are your clinics also doing them routinely now?

What do you think?

Do you think there is an ideal climate for people with CF? Humidity

vs. dryness, in particular? Our climate has cold, dry winters and

warm, fairly dry summers, and my husband would like to move to a

climate with warm, very humid winters (but not sticky humid) and

warm, fairly humid summers (Vancouver Island, B.C.) What have your

experiences been with different climates?Do you think breathing salty

ocean air is beneficial?Have you encountered more fungal type

infections in very humid climates?

If anyone here lives in B.C. and attends the CF clinic in Vancouver

or , could you please email me, as I would love to ask you

some specific questions? My email address is wkrieger@....

Thank you!

Barb (mother of Kelsey, 11, with CF, and 3 boys, 8, 5 and 1)