Asthma

[detritus21]

My asthma wasn't that bad to start but would still cause me issues when I was running hard like chest tightness and wheezing which linked directly into a drop in performance. I'm not a bad runner so I'd go from 5:30 mile pace in a race and end up doing over 6 even though my legs were fine just unable to get the air in.

I take an inhaler in the morning and at night and take my ventolin before I do any hard training or racing and touch wood my chest has been spot on. I only know its working as I forgot to take it for the club handicap and my performance dropped dramatically all in the space of 100m when my chest tightened up.

I do regular peak flows and prior to exercise it was up around 510 then post exercise would drop to 480-500 which is a significant drop. Now I take the inhaler its increased to 520-540 prior to exercise and maintains immediately post exercise.

Peak flow should increase or remain the smae post exercise if it does drop it shows that you are getting a restrictive pattern in your lungs which will be due mainly to bronchoconstiction.

The inhaler I take in the morning and night is a mix of a corticosteroid and a long acting bronchodilator. The corticosteroid to reduce airway inflamation and the long acting bronchodilator to keep the airways open. In theory the one I take lasts for 12 hours. These include medications such as seretide and symbicort (a COPD inhaler but it works for me). The Ventolin I only take prior to hard exercise this really as a preventative measure so that the airways are even less likely to go into spasm.

What tends to happen is you'll get put onto ventolin which is about 2 quid a metered dose inhaler as its cheaper. The corticosteroid that you'll generally be thrust is a brown one which be becotide or beclamethasone which at the most is 8 quid. Most medication is given as its cheap even though its not always the most effective. ie symbicort is 30 odd quid an inhaler and seretide the same.

Its also important to have you asthma controlled as uncontrolled asthma is a precursor to COPD not what you want. I only know this as part of my role as a physio is with COPD patients and god its scary at times

[downsman]

Interesting stuff for me this. I grew up in the countryside and never had any problems until I moved to London in 1989 when I experieced chest tightness. My doctor at the time told me I was having panic attacks which I wasn't. Now it comes and goes and is always worse from about October through to March / April depending on the weather. Very cold weather makes me suffer more but during the spring and summer I am usually absolutely fine.

I too used to use the blue inhalers before races and other exercise as a precautionary measure. Last year I had to stop after the first few minutes of a race - it was a hill race (I live in the South so no fells) and started with a steep climb on to the South Downs. I was all fired up and set off a bit sharpish and I think this is what triggered it. I had also had a cough / chest cold a few weeks previous which was not fully cleared out which didn't help.

I returned to the doctor and he checked me out and assured me there was nothing untoward. He prescrbed the brown inhaler with a small spacer tube. This helps you get more of the drug in - apparantely only 10% gets in to you if you do not use a spacer. I started with two bangs on the blue followed by two on the brown twice a day and noticed a huge improvement. I'm now down to one on each in the morning and before bed and then two on the blue 15/20 minutes before exercising. I only need this extra with running and biking - most other exercise is okay.

My mother in law bought me a 'Power Breather' for Xmas this year. It's a small device that allows you to exercise your lungs and build up their strength and I have found this beneficial - despite all the saliva it produces and the fact I sound like Darth Vader! Just do a web search on Power Breather and you'll get loads of info and reviews.

Hope that helps. Your friend should be encouraged to run and exercise and manage his asthma properly. If he sits on his arse all day he'll get fat and increase his chances of all sorts of nasties later in life. Feel free to get him to contact me if he wants any further advice.

[NotOnUrHelly]

Some interesting stuff here guys, thanks for your reply to my inhaler questions Detritus.

I ran last night and felt terrible again, I tried setting off slowly getting the first 20 minutes out of the way. Then speeding up, this did not help and as soon as I increased my speed I started blowing again

Im sure its just the weather at the moment, as its happened before. Im probably gonna rest for a few days and see if things clear up as I have been suffering in the middle of the night also.

On my next run I'm going to wear my buff over my mouth and nose and try to control the temperature of the air going in. I have heard this helps

I'm interested in what downsman has said about the spacers that are used with inhalers.

I have also looked into buying a powerbreathe to try to help with things, but I have heard (or read) mixed reviews on these things.

Cheers
Jamie

[downsman]

Jamie - I noticed a big difference in the effectiveness of the inhaler when I started using the spacer. I used ot get woken in the nights occasionally before using the brown inhalers but (touch wood) it seems to be okay now. Not pleasant though!

[NotOnUrHelly]

Is the spacer used for all inhalers or does it just come with each inhaler and have a 1 inhaler life span.

Thanks

[detritus21]

Forgot about spacers. There are two main types on the market there is the aerochamber and the volumatic. The one you'd want really is the aerochamber. Its about 6 inches long and although not as effective as the volumatic is much more convenient.

[Penguin]

I returned to the doctor and he checked me out and assured me there was nothing untoward. He prescrbed the brown inhaler with a small spacer tube. This helps you get more of the drug in - apparantely only 10% gets in to you if you do not use a spacer. I started with two bangs on the blue followed by two on the brown twice a day and noticed a huge improvement. I'm now down to one on each in the morning and before bed and then two on the blue 15/20 minutes before exercising. I only need this extra with running and biking - most other exercise is okay.

My mother in law bought me a 'Power Breather' for Xmas this year. It's a small device that allows you to exercise your lungs and build up their strength and I have found this beneficial - despite all the saliva it produces and the fact I sound like Darth Vader! Just do a web search on Power Breather and you'll get loads of info and reviews.

i thought you wern't supposed to use the power breathe if you were ashmatic?

[Penguin]

around may i struggle with running the doctor told me it was mild ashtma and gave me the blue inhaler, it didn't help with the running though as i found i was still wheezing on track efforts.. some times i really struggle and i now put this down to pollen.
i use the power breathe around march-june to counter act the pollen it seems to work and helps my lung strength as well.
i showed the power breath to my doctor, he tried to give me another inhaler i have around 10 of them floating around somewhere not used.

[Daftasabrush]

I've got exercise induced asthma and saw my GP who gave me ventolin then I went through work and saw a consultant who stuck me on a long acting bronchodilator and corticosteroid which works a treat. Running with asthma shouldn't eb a problem as long as it is controlled.

I have exercise induced asthma and so do a handful of fellow club members.

If you enter County level events or above you have to register as a user, as some inhalers include Salbutamol which is a banned substance.
The UK Athletics website lists details.

I have weaned myself off my inhaler, and tend to use only after running when I can't stop coughing.

If I thought I was really bad, I would always make sure I carried an inhaler and let race organisers know I was asthmatic.

[detritus21]

My consultant is filling in the forms to UKA as I type.