Liz Boden of the Nurses Practice and Open Airways was overwhelmed at the response to the first Action Asthma Week...but they are only `scratching the surface' in terms of education.

"It was an amazing success, people came from all ages from all over the Island to the different activities, whether it was at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, the Phoenix store, in the schools or the Allergy Clinic's successful open house on Saturday," said an exhausted Mrs. Boden yesterday after a busy week of activities.

"But we feel we haven't even begun, even though we felt we were doing very well before when we had hospital admissions down by 65 per cent in five years.

"There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people with asthma and with symptoms that are not controlled that they are putting up with on a daily basis.

"The large majority were not taking the preventative inhalers, they were just taking their blue reliever and were putting up with miserable symptoms."

Mrs. Boden said the key is for those with asthma symptoms to see their doctor to get the right diagnosis, be prescribed the right treatment and then be educated by an asthma specialist such as herself at the Nurses Practice or Debbie Barboza, the asthma nurse at the hospital.

"The big word is education, but they must see their doctors and get the right prescription," she urged.

"When you have asthma you get used to the symptoms, and I was completely guilty of this too, even though I'm a nurse.

"I would wheeze when I coughed and I woke up every night needing my inhaler for years and years and years.

"You get used to it but you don't realise you don't need to put up with those symptoms. The big message is `the goal is control'."

Added Mrs. Boden: "They should really see a doctor at least once a year for their asthma, but many said they haven't seen a doctor for years about asthma, they would just call the nurse and get a refill prescription."

Mrs. Boden admits those involved in asthma care were energised by the visit of Monica Fletcher from Britain. And those with asthma took advantage of the information and advice offered as some 600 spacers were distributed free thanks to the End to End charity walk.

"There were long, long queues of people, we haven't had time to take stock and we have hundreds to enter into the computer," she said of the task ahead.

"The new spacer device needs to be used all the time, particularly with the preventive inhaler. I probably saw five people who stopped by who I would say had their asthma under control," said Mrs. Boden.

"All the others, hundreds, were in poor control. I really would like to feel Bermuda could become a shining example all over the world, Monica wants us to be talking at international conferences to show other countries what a small country can do when we join hands and work as a team...doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists.

"She was very impressed by the level of energy and excitement here."

Mrs. Boden recalled an experience with one middle-aged asthmatic who, upon being shown how to use the spacer, thought she had been cured.

"She came in extremely short of breath and we gave her just two puffs of her ventolin inhaler using the new Able spacer and she returned about 45 minutes later saying `thank you, thank you, you've cured me'.

"She reckoned she had never remembered breathing like that, but she wasn't cured, there is no cure for asthma. What had happened is the ventolin had got into her airways, perhaps for the first time, and opened them and made her feel fantastic.

"The message for her was to get that preventative inhaler in every morning and every evening and hopefully she will be able to feel like that all the time. But she must come back and be put on an action plan tailored to her needs."

Mrs. Boden also visited Gilbert Institute on Friday where she discovered 39 asthmatics (four teachers) out of 140 students there.

"The problem is Island-wide and extremely widespread," Mrs. Acknowledged.

"We've got a lot of work to do!"