Don't let it stand in the way (My Experience of Asthma)

Name: i_p_jones

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Product:	My Experience of Asthma
Date:	11/03/01 (71 review reads)
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I've had asthma since before I can remember - I think I was diagnosed when I was 3 years old. Lucky for me, 18 years later, it's well under control. Let me tell you all about it.

The Basics
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Asthma is a kind of over-reaction by your airways to something they don't like - usually dust, cold, whatever. The muscles of the airways tighten up, making the airways smaller, and on top of that, mucus builds up. Put together, it's damn hard to breathe.

The most common form of medication for asthma is inhalers, which you breathe directly into your lungs, or by tablet. I've always used inhalers, so I can't say much about the tablets.

Most people are fine with inhalers, but younger children sometimes have problems coordinating breathing in and pressing the inhaler, so they use spacers. These allow you to breathe in the medication normally, without having to get the "timing" right.

There are two types of medication - preventers and relievers.

Preventers are usually steroid-based, which puts some people off, but they're completely different to muscle-building steroids. The one I use is Becotide, in a light brown canister. It requires one dose in the morning, and one in the evening. As long as I remember it, I'm fine - even if I miss one or two doses, I'm still OK, but I would never stop using it just because I thought my asthma was "cured".

Once there are problems, the reliever comes in - I use Ventolin, a blue canister. This is a dose whenever it's required. Some people say you can't overdose on it because when you need it, you can't breathe the full dose anyway. I don't recommend trying though - it's a drug, so don't over-use it.

Common triggers for asthma include dust, cold air, exercise, and other allergies such as hay fever.

My Experiences
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As I said at the start, I've had asthma for
almost all my life. Thankfully, it's not a serious problem and it's well-controlled - the last bad attack I had was way back in 1992.

When I was younger (pre-1992), it used to be more of a problem though. Whenever I had a bad attack, my parents searched around for something they had changed recently which might have caused my attack. Most of the time, this "theory" worked - it was usually a new strong air freshener or something.

More recently (around 1995-6), I started some proper exercise - fell walking. As I expected, I had a few problems for a while, namely running out of breath quickly.

This varied on how strenuous the walking was, and how cold the air was. I didn't have any bad attacks out on the hillside, but it was just a case of stopping for a few minutes and using my reliever.

My theory about this was that doing more strenuous exercise like this was stretching my lungs, and then taking my reliever got the medication into those "new" areas. I don't know how medically-correct this is, but I'm sure it's worked. As the walks got longer and harder, I needed the reliever less and less. Now, it's very rare if I need it at all, but I still carry it with me just in case.

I found swimming was another excellent exercise for relieving my asthma - it's a gentle exercise, and the moist air helped. I don't do much swimming anymore, but I'm sure it was one of the keys in getting it under control.

At the moment, my asthma is fine - no problems for a long time. The only few times I've had any wheezing or shortness of breath was when I've had a bad cold or flu. At these times, I take my Ventolin reliever regularly, every few hours, along with other drugs for the cold.

Endnotes
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What I think is the best way of getting around asthma is to understand it. Such as looking out for what might have caused an attack. And realising that alt
hough exercise may trigger an attack, it's important to keep it up. As I've found, strenuous exercise has got it well under control.

Asthma is recently on the increase. It may be due to more pollution, or less exercise, I don't know. One very interesting theory is that we're being too clean - by not being exposed to triggers like dust and so on, our systems can't make antibodies to fight off the illness.

Another one I've seen is we breathe inefficiently, and a "cure" is to get into the habit of breathing deeply. I don't know all that much about this idea, and I haven't tried any of the methods (it's called the Buteyko method, there's loads of info on the WWW), but reading about it, it sounds like a good idea.

For a long time, people have asked whether you can grow out of asthma. My answer is "no" - I reckon it's just well-controlled. Look at the cases of people who thought they'd outgrown it, put their medication in the bin, and then a few years later it's returned with a vengeance.

Overall, as the title of this op says - don't let asthma get in your way. Get to understand it and learn how to control it and you'll be fine.

Websites
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National Asthma Campaign - http://www.asthma.org.uk/
Buteyko A-Z - http://www.buteyko.com/

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