Asthma
Asthma is a chronic disorder of the airways the typically causes respiratory symptoms such as cough, chest tightness, and shortness of breath. These symptoms can be either persistent or intermittent and frequently result in missed school or work.
Asthma is due to abnormal inflammation and hyper-responsiveness of the airways. The resulting airway constriction is usually reversible with proper use of medications combined with avoidance of environmental asthmatic triggers, if known.
Physician specialties include Pulmonary (Drs. Cavallazzi and Rivas), Allergy/Immunology, Speech Pathology, Otolaryngology, Family Medicine and Internal Medicine.
Experienced respiratory therapists provide asthma education to all our patients, by either individual instructions or in a group education session.
Asthma clinical coordinators are used to assist with patient follow-up and compliance and to provide patients and their families with easy access to renewing medications, answering questions, and other support.
We advocate for patient self-management of their asthma.
Our physicians follow the most recently published asthma guidelines of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program as described in the Expert Panel Report 3: Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma, 2007 (EPR-3).
We know that your time is very important, so we make every effort to coordinate and consolidate any testing and patient encounters to minimize the amount of time you spend at our offices. We have the most comprehensive and experienced pulmonary function laboratory in the area.
We provide the most up-to-date testing which include pulmonary function testing, challenge testing, exercise-induced asthma, exhaled nitric oxide measurements, allergy skin testing, vocal cord dysfunction and bronchial thermoplasty.