tac. Founders story

Nineteen-year-old Valentine Mirzayantz, the founder of The Asthma Collective (tac.), suffered from mild asthma as a young child. From the age of 11, this developed into severe chronic asthma. It came on suddenly and severely. She suffered a major asthma attack in Year 7 which was so severe she spent over a week in hospital on oxygen. Shortly afterwards, quite out of the blue, she began to develop acute food allergies. Valentine had never had food allergies before and had always enjoyed a diverse and healthy diet. However just months after the asthma attack, she became so acutely allergic to foods that eventually she was diagnosed anaphylactic.

Valentine recalls: “I had occasional asthma as a child, but never severe. I used to be on the running team at my school and did consistent training – it was only when l was running cross country that l would need to take a puff of Ventolin. When we moved interstate for my Dad’s work – from Sydney to Brisbane – my asthma went out of control. I had asthma constantly.  Then after the major attack that landed me in hospital for a week that health went completely downhill.”

“One day, shortly after getting out of the hospital, I ate a strawberry and my lips blew up like a balloon. They were covered in purple hives and the next thing my throat closed over and I was struggling to breathe. Over the next few weeks, I developed allergies to multiple foods – watermelon, mango, kiwi, avocado, bread, ice cream, you name it. Eventually, I could only eat four foods – chicken, carrots, apple and lettuce, and this became my daily diet. I was soon diagnosed with Anaphylaxis, and the days and months following became a nightmare. I was scared to eat, worried I’d trigger another attack – this only worsened my asthma. l was constantly sick, unwell and debilitated from my asthma and allergy medication.”

Moving from primary school into high school, Valentine learnt to deal with the struggles of a simple diet and constant asthma. “In 2015, I started high school and in the first week at my new school l had an anaphylactic attack to the smell in one of the classrooms.” Then over the next few weeks, she had similar reactions in different rooms. “From my science lab to my history class, to my maths class, it was a nightmare. It was so incredibly embarrassing. Eventually, most of my classes got moved to the library. The Principal and teachers were very accommodating and supportive, but l felt like a huge burden.” Valentine’s sensitivities to her new environment were extreme.

“I constantly had an itchy throat, was hyperventilating trying to figure out if l could breathe, and then running to the first aid office, puffing on my Ventolin, then having to swallow another allergy pill – l looked like a nutcase. The final straw was coming home one night to have an itchy throat in my own bedroom. Over-night l became allergic to my own room, I started to wake up with hives on my face or mouth, swollen eyes and asthma. I then spent the next 3 months sleeping in my parents’ room”.

Staying in Brisbane was no longer viable. After an intensive couple of years seeing Doctors, asthma specialists and allergy specialists, Valentine was on multiple medications to manage her conditions but neither her Doctors nor her specialists could explain what was really happening to her body. Valentine’s parents were so desperate to break her cycle of illness that they decided to try moving Valentine back down South – hoping a change back to a cooler and different environment might aid her condition.

The family moved from Brisbane, down to Melbourne. The move was not a quick fix for Valentine’s health conditions, but the cooler weather did seem to agree with Valentine better. Over time, she started to improve – slowly. But her daily life, particularly her high school years, was difficult. She missed many days of school due to asthma and food allergies and she simply couldn’t function at the same pace as her fellow students. She was constantly exhausted and run-down. After every major asthma event, she would need days to recover. Most weekends were spent in bed so that she could regain her strength again for the next week.

In Year 12 Valentine missed a total of 33 days of school due to Asthma and/or allergies. This was really hard for her as she loved school and wanted to succeed but she was always struggling with her health. Despite this, she graduated and started University in 2020. Then the COVID pandemic turned the world upside down. Being a high risk from a health perspective, Valentine and her parents agreed that she should not go to face-to-face classes, so she deferred her course early on. This decision, whilst stressful at the time, turned out to be a very fortuitous one. Valentine had time to stop, think and focus on her health.

Sick of being “sick”, she decided to use 2020 – the year of lockdown – to really take charge of her health and to commit to a wellness plan. She had been experimenting for a few years with diet, exercise and alternative therapies but, up until 2020, never had the time to really commit herself to get well. She became super aware and conscious of her asthma “triggers” and started choosing clean, anti-inflammatory foods to support her immune system. She cut out all dairy, wheat, gluten and almost all packaged foods. She started to explore alternative therapies, including Chinese medicine and Acupuncture. She realized that by making some small but meaningful changes to her daily life her asthma symptoms and attacks could become less severe and less frequent and her intolerances to certain foods started to diminish.

Whilst regaining her confidence in her immune system and diet, Valentine thought about what it meant to live with chronic asthma. What does it mean and how does it affect you to 1. Carry your Ventolin 2. Carry your EpiPen and 3. Carry your other medications like allergy tablets around everywhere?  Living the true day-to-day with this debilitating disease meant that these devices were essential to her staying alive and needed to be carried around everywhere she went.

“In primary school when my allergies and asthma began to worsen l had to carry my Ventolin, allergy tablets and an EpiPen everywhere. One afternoon my mum took me to Colette and bought me a small cross-body bag so l could carry my medication on the playground. From then on l travelled everywhere with this bag to class, to the playground and even to the pool during P.E; it was like having a third arm,” recalls Valentine. “It was extremely ‘embarrassing’ at the time, and l cannot tell you how many questions l would get from school friends, teachers and parents as to why I always carried a bag. This carried on into my high school years where l continuously had to carry my medication everywhere. Luckily for me, l managed to fit it all in my dress or blazer pockets of my school uniform. Although this was not ideal – there was always the risk of losing them or putting them down and forgetting them somewhere (which happened often!).

“The concept for THE ASTHMA COLLECTIVE (tac.) came to mind by living the day-to-day life of being an asthmatic. No-one truly understands how embarrassing it is to have to pull your Ventolin puffer out on a packed tram at 5pm peak hour when people are heading home – or at least for me this was embarrassing. There is no beauty in your average asthma puffer and, in many ways, this added to my stress of having to cope with the disease.

“In created The Asthma Collective, my first goal was to create a product that would give people the confidence to carry their puffer around with them constantly and help ensure that the puffer could be kept close at hand and not get easily lost. I cannot tell you how many times my mum would get frustrated with me for losing my Ventolin at the bottom of my school bag. If only l had our SKIN at the time to clip onto my bag, life would have been easier!

“In addition to creating a useful and practical case for puffers, it was extremely important to me to help create a World-Wide Community for young Asthmatics. Growing up with Asthma, I found there was a lot of trial and error in finding the right help and solutions: whether it be finding the right Doctor, or medication, or the right foods, or exercises – it went on and on. As a young child, I found this a stressful and painful process; even more so as a young adult who had been dealing with chronic illness for a decade.

“In 2020 when I truly took charge of improving my health, l began researching and trying other forms of medicine, new health remedies, recipes, juices; I tried heaps of different things and tried to be open-minded in the process. With cooking I found it extremely difficult to find dishes that worked for me, that didn’t trigger my asthma and that had FLAVOUR. If there’s anything l can say is that I’ve tasted it all, from gluten-free, dairy-free, wheat-free, paleo, vegan – let’s be honest it’s a struggle to find what’s going to be healthy and taste good. With medicine, I was fortunate to find that Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture made an enormous difference to my asthma and overall health. I wish I had discovered this a lot sooner.

“My goal with The Asthma Collective is to over time create a one-stop shop for luxe products for asthma sufferers and to provide a wealth of ideas and positive inspiration to inspire others on their own wellness journey. I hope that tac. can provide some comfort and support too in coping with a life with asthma and, above all, inspire you to live a healthy life – with asthma.”

“My goal with The Asthma Collective is to over time create a one-stop shop for luxe products for asthma sufferers and to provide a wealth of ideas and positive inspiration to inspire others on their own wellness journey. I hope that tac. can provide some comfort and support too in coping with a life with asthma and, above all, inspire you to live a healthy life – with asthma.”

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