Hello stackers! I'm writing here to tell you that I have a project at @geyserfund, also because I'm going to do an extension of what I wrote there, since I only had space to write 8000 characters, but I had written 13000 characters. Here will be everything that I couldn't tell there. A much more detailed version of my situation. Before I begin, I want to point out that I accept suggestions, advice and constructive criticism or if you have any questions about it I will gladly answer them. My project

I am a woman and a mother, I come from the coast of Venezuela, while I lived there I only suffered from allergies and acute rhinitis, nothing to worry about. I emigrated in 2018, I have been living in Peru for almost 7 years, since I arrived here my health has been compromised because I began to suffer from chronic asthma, it has been difficult to control, for that reason I must use medications indefinitely while I live in the city of Lima. However, my 7-year-old daughter has also been suffering from Bronchial hyperresponsiveness due to airway inflammation, and like me she also has to use corticosteroid inhalers on occasion, and she even has her own aerochamber.

Fun fact: Peru is one of the seven countries with the highest asthma severity in the world

1- My first experience (2018) with asthma was strange, I don't really remember having previous symptoms or maybe I did have them but I didn't identify them. It was a winter night, the humidity in the environment is quite high here, I wanted to sleep and I couldn't, I couldn't stop coughing, when I tried to lie down I was choking and felt like I couldn't breathe, I sat up for hours coughing trying to get through the night, I grabbed my cell phone and to my surprise I saw that my dad was online (we live in different countries), it was 2am so it seemed strange to me and I wrote to him, we talked for a while and then he asked me what I was doing awake at that hour and I told him what was happening to me, he told me: "you're having an asthma attack, you have to go to a hospital", those words came as a surprise to me, I had never experienced that in my life, I didn't know the seriousness of the matter, I had to wait until it was approximately 5am to be able to go out and take a taxi, luckily for me I saw that a neighbor's taxi driver was leaving for work, I told him to please take me to the nearest hospital, I had only been in this city for a few months and I didn't know anything, I got to the hospital and they treated me, indeed I was having an asthma attack. I was given injections and nebulized, and was also prescribed some pills to take at home for 3 days.

2- A few months passed, it was already 2019, in that period of time I only suffered from my allergies, until a restless cough arrived again, I thought it was just a common cough with phlegm, I made the decision to take Ambroxol and for the allergy a chlorphenamine pill, I cannot forget to mention that I also put vip vaporu on my chest, since the nasal congestion, allergy and cough had me bothered, only a couple of hours passed before I realized the asthma attack, history repeated itself again, I had to go to the emergency hospital, I went to the same public hospital as the first time, but this time they gave me a referral order to be seen by a specialist in respiratory diseases, but the appointment was given to me for 15 days after that date, I went home to rest, but I continued to feel bad, I felt pain in my chest and shortness of breath, I went to a small clinic with affordable prices, the doctor who treated me explained to me that asthmatic people They cannot use VIP Vapor or take synthetic cough syrups like Ambroxol. He prescribed me Budesonide in an inhaler, which is used to reduce inflammation and thin out a natural syrup to cough up phlegm. I bought those two medications in a generic version because it was what I could afford and wow, I felt great almost immediately. My chest pain, fatigue and cough disappeared. The treatment was only for a month. After that treatment, I was doing very well.

3- In February 2020 I had a pain in my chest, fatigue, unstoppable coughing at night, I did not want to have an asthma attack again, I wanted to control it before it got worse, I tried to be careful with my diet and anything that could make it worse, almost all the money I earned I was saving to go to the doctor again and buy the medications he prescribed me, it took me a while to save money until March, but then that whole pandemic problem happened, on March 14, 2020 at night they said on the news that starting March 15 of that year there would be a quarantine, there was no clinic available, nor hospitals attending consultations with specialists, they were only attending emergencies, I tried to go through an emergency to get treated, but they did not do it and they did not let me in, I returned home and I was still very uncomfortable, I spent weeks looking for a clinic where they were giving consultations, but there was none, the few doctors specialized in respiratory diseases were only attending virtually or at home at prices that I did not know. I had no way to pay, the more days passed, the worse I felt, just in June they opened a small clinic again and I saw that there were specialists in respiratory diseases, I went there, they prescribed me inhalers, pills and a granulated medicine for the cough, I went to the pharmacy to buy the medicines but something seemed suspicious about one of the medicines they prescribed me, I bought everything anyway because in the end "the doctors are the ones who have the knowledge", I took the medicines as they told me, but I did not feel the same relief from the previous treatment, on the contrary I felt like my chest was closing more and more, I got scared and I knew something was wrong, I expressed how I felt but they only told me "you must wait for the treatment to take effect", thanks to the fact that I am a stubborn person, I ignored what they told me and I started to investigate each medicine they prescribed me, and there it was in the precautions of that granulated medicine, it explicitly said that it was contraindicated for people with asthma, I stopped taking that medicine, I continued the treatment with the other medications but I was still the same, or even worse, I bought a nebulizer, but even that did not help relieve my asthma.

I got to the point where I felt so weak that it was hard for me to walk and talk, until one day I felt like I really couldn't take it anymore, I was scared, I couldn't even take care of my daughter, walking to the bathroom was a difficulty, my husband had to work all day so he couldn't help me at home; one day, I was casually talking to my cousin who also lives here, and I ended up telling her what was happening to me and she just said: "I'm going to look for you immediately"... the plan was to stay at her house while I recovered from asthma, since my cousin's house was also home to my aunt, she was in charge of taking care of my cousin's children while she worked, so I spent 2 months at her house, my husband visited us every weekend and brought us food, my aunt helped me take care of my daughter while I couldn't do it, it was 2 long months for me, the nights were eternal, it was when I felt the worst, the search for doctors was complicated, everyone hid behind Covid.

4- After so much searching, we found a doctor who was giving in-person consultations, he was a little expensive, but it was that or nothing, I went to the consultation on June 25, 2020, I arrived at the office with hypoxia, my oxygen saturation was 93, I explained my entire history to the doctor regarding asthma and I remember when he told me that at the last small clinic I went to, there are no doctors specialized in respiratory diseases, there are only general practitioners, in short, in that small clinic they were scamming people, there were general medicine doctors posing as specialists and therefore prescribing the wrong medications, sometimes I just wonder how many people they have killed by prescribing contraindicated medications. With this new doctor they again prescribed me more inhalers, pills, predigsone syrup, he also told me that I had to go to the consultation every month to check my health status, in addition to having to undergo a test called spirometry every month to evaluate my lung function, of course this test had a cost apart from the consultation.

I followed my treatment to the letter, there was a small improvement, my oxygen saturation was no longer 93 but 97, it was progress, but I still felt bad, during the day I felt a slight improvement, but at night the fatigue and pressure in the chest returned, it was desperate, every month I went to that doctor he did the spirometry and prescribed me the same inhalers but also prescribed me different pills, I felt mentally and physically exhausted, I wanted to feel well, the last time I went to his office, he told me: "you have asthma and you have COPD"

It was a horrible day, I only thought about not being able to see my daughter grow up and that I would not be able to meet my family again, he told me this with such unpleasant coldness, he prescribed me a different inhaler with other components than the one I had been using the last few months, resigned I bought it, I started the treatment, this new medication was having an adverse effect on me, all the progress I had made in the previous months went down the drain, I was back to square one, with difficulty breathing and a lot of pain.

5- I didn't want to be stuck with that diagnosis, so I looked for another doctor as quickly as possible. They recommended a doctor and I made an appointment with him. I went with half hope. I showed him all the previous prescriptions and the results of the spirometries I had done with the other doctor. He told me: "Spirometries are only done once a year or at most once every 6 months. The results come out altered every month because you have poorly controlled asthma. You don't have COPD." You can't imagine the relief I felt. It's like my soul came back again and a ray of light appeared after such a grey year. He prescribed me just one medication: Seretide. (It's the most expensive inhaler on the market here in Peru.) I asked him if I should go monthly to check my health and he said: "come back in two months."

Two months passed and I returned to his office. I had improved a lot. I could breathe now. I asked him how long I should use this medicine. The answer was: Always, as long as you live in Lima.

For two consecutive years I used the medicine he prescribed and I was fine. I stopped using it because I could no longer afford it and I thought I didn't need it anymore. I spent a year and a half without using this medicine, but again since June of this year I have had discomfort and fatigue. I have not been able to buy it again because the price is unaffordable for me. I made the decision to buy the generic inhaler that I used the first time (Budesonide). It has helped me stay stable, but it hasn't been enough. I am getting to the point where walking makes me feel fatigued. I must go to the doctor to start treatment for asthma and allergies.