A hopeful mum is counting on a “miracle” treatment that could prevent her seven-year-old daughter‘s death from asthma. Sammi Boyle, 29, is currently living in fear that one more asthma attack could take her daugher Ariana Boyle’s life.
The youngster, from Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, has been hospitalised her more than 50 times due to her severe brittle asthma – and the family are now placing all their hopes on a last-resort treatment called biologic injections, which could be only thing to save Ariana from the terrifying episodes which often leave her unable to breathe. The injections use antibodies, produced from cells in a laboratory, which can target specific cells in the body to help stop lung inflammation. They are a specialist therapy only offered in the most extreme cases, where there is a possibility of fatal outcome.
Before she can receive treatment, however, Ariana must undergo months of observations to ensure the correct medicine is given. Her treatment is expected to start next month. Sammi, 29, said: “Her asthma is getting worse and I am afraid if it can’t be brought under control she will lose her life.” The youngster is currently being treated in hospital following another serious attack – just 24 hours after her last discharge.
In September last year, after a particularly bad episode in which she turned blue and had to have CPR, Sammi thought she had lost her. Ariana was rushed to hospital, where medics agreed she should consider having the potentially life-saving injections. Since then, she has had several more hospital admissions with life-threatening episodes, including one when she was out playing with her brother, Oliver. Ariana regularly has bronchial spasms where she can’t breathe – sometimes up to 20 a day – but her inhalers normally help.
Sammi said: “That night in September she was just coughing like she was having a normal spasm. I walked through to give her inhaler but by the time I got there she was completely blue. I have never seen anyone this colour. The life just drew from her eyes. There was nothing there.”
After CPR from both her dad, Robert, 33, and her mum, Ariana was rushed to Wishaw General. It was feared she would be placed on a ventilator, but she was stablisied by intravenous aminophylline – a relaxant for the bronchial tubes. Ariana was just one-years-old when she was diagnosed with asthma. Sammi said: “Every year it just seems to be getting worse and worse. It used to be when she was younger her asthma was only really bad in the winter and cold months, but for the past two years it is all year round. There is only so much someone’s lungs can take with what she has been through already.”
The family are pinning their hopes on the biologic injections, which have “worked wonders” for other asthma sufferers, but they are aware the treatment has no guarantees. The injections may mean she could be weaned off her current steroid regime. Those drugs have a punishing effect on her body, causing vomiting, stomach pains and even fluid on the brain but, without them, her asthma would be even worse. Sammi said: “I wish she could get the injections a bit quicker. She is getting worse. I don’t think a lot of people believe someone can be so unwell with asthma. But asthma does still take lives.”
Joseph Carter, head of Asthma + Lung UK Scotland, said: “We are calling for greater support, diagnosis and treatment for people who have severe asthma and for greater access to biologics across Scotland.”
A spokesman from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: “We have been supporting Ariana and her family for a number of years and have planned to begin new treatment as soon as possible.”
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