# Exercise induced asthma?



## Ravenbait (7 Feb 2011)

OK, so, let me explain.

No. That would take too long. Let me sum up:

Last May I injured my plantar fascia in a race (triathlon). I was off for the rest of the season, as the damage to my foot resulted in osteoarthritis in the metatarsals. I was about to start training again at the start of October when I got the flu. Proper flu, with a secondary bronchial infection that took two courses of antibiotics to sort out. I was out of action for 6 weeks, and have only just started feeling up to getting back into training during the last couple of weeks.

My first run last week was painful in all sorts of ways, mostly in my calves. Fine, I can cope with that. The swimming was okay, at least. I was on the turbo yesterday for 30 minutes and running again today (20 minutes) and I noticed afterwards that I was wheezing a bit. I've not had that before.

Is this likely to be a combination of the cold weather and lack of fitness? Is it a hangover from the flu? Will it go away? Am I destined for the scrap heap already?

I'm not ready for the scrap heap!    

Sam


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## Zoiders (7 Feb 2011)

The deepest darkest nooks and crannies of your lungs will be filled with gunge still, I wouldnt be surprised if you wheeze a bit firing the last of it back out again, cold air can make your lungs have a bit of a spaz as well.

Be carefull with the word asthma, every bugger and his dog thinks they have it when in a lot of cases it's lack of fitness and panic attacks - of which I suspect you suffer from neither.


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## Ravenbait (7 Feb 2011)

Oh, I get occasional panic attacks. I know all about those. It's not that. Not when running. I usually get those at about 4am.

I should possibly have been a bit more careful about my use of the word asthma -- my other half was diagnosed with it recently.

I did get a chest x-ray in November, which was clear, so I'm hoping this is just my body saying "What the hell? I haven't had to do this in AGES."

Thanks, Zoiders.

Sam


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## Crackle (7 Feb 2011)

You probably don't have it but you may need some inhalors for a period, that's happened to me before. Your GP should be able to hear any crackling or wheezing, worth a visit to explain what's occuring, otherwise it could be months clearing up. 

Like me now, I had a minor chest/throat infection but my airways are still a bit blocked or feel as though they are. I can see my HR is normal but I'm stuggling harder to breathe but then again I do have asthma which developed as an adult and if you have it, there's no mistaking it, you will struggle hard to get your breath, it won't just be a wheeze.


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## Ravenbait (7 Feb 2011)

Last couple of times I went she couldn't hear anything, and most of the time I'm fine. It's only after training.

I know I'm out of shape, my Suunto tells me so. Maybe once the warmer weather kicks in I'll have upped my base fitness to approaching what it was and it will have cleared up. Shame there's nothing that can be done for the foot, though!

Thanks.

Sam


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## ttcycle (7 Feb 2011)

Sorry to hear about the health issues Sam

It may be the case that you have exercise induced asthma but it'll be hard to determine this unless you remove the other variables. Once your base fitness improves and once your lungs have normalised from all the stress and infection- see how you go in a few months time and if it still happens and you find you're short of breath/wheezing then it may be useful to get an inhaler of sorts.

Good luck


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## GrumpyGregry (7 Feb 2011)

Zoiders said:


> The deepest darkest nooks and crannies of your lungs will be filled with gunge still, I wouldnt be surprised if you wheeze a bit firing the last of it back out again, cold air can make your lungs have a bit of a spaz as well.
> 
> Be carefull with the word asthma, *every bugger and his dog thinks they have it when in a lot of cases it's lack of fitness* and panic attacks - of which I suspect you suffer from neither.




and quite a few buggers and their canine's labour for years under the misaprehension that it is their lack of fitness causing them problems until asthma is diagnosed. Lack of fitness probably won't kill someone on its own. An asthma attack can.

Sam, get down the quacks....


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## Zoiders (7 Feb 2011)

It's not as common as you think.

If you keep pestering a doc for that kind of diagnosis they cave in the end and tell you what you want to hear.

Mentioning fatal asthma attacks doesn't help matters for Sam either.


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## Ravenbait (7 Feb 2011)

GregCollins said:


> and quite a few buggers and their canine's labour for years under the misaprehension that it is their lack of fitness causing them problems until asthma is diagnosed. Lack of fitness probably won't kill someone on its own. An asthma attack can.
> 
> Sam, get down the quacks....



Been down the quacks, Greg! Got a chest x-ray and everything!

They were pretty sharp at diagnosing my other half's asthma, so I'm confident they'd have caught it if I'd developed it.

Nah. It's probably just a combination of being off training for 8 months and the cold weather. Up until the foot I was used to 16 -20 hours of training a week and went from that to practically zero. And it was cold enough last night on the turbo for me to need a jacket for 15 minutes, plus I was running in a blizzard today, after all...

Thanks for the concern, folks, it's sweet. I feel all warm and cherished, now  .

Sam


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## ventoux50 (7 Feb 2011)

Most likely not to be exercise induced asthma - you would no doubt have exhibited symptoms previously if that were the case.

What is more probable is that following your recent lung infection, even though it has now cleared up, the mucosal lining of the lungs can be left 'thinner' than normal, and is more prone to spasm.
Spasm is readily elicited by inhaling cold air, and if you train (i.e. increase respiration rate and depth through exercising ) in cold conditions - you run the risk of inducing spasm . . . . . this feels like a tightness of the chest, and an inability to fully fill the lungs and breathe deeply.

After a long lay off, start from scratch again, build up gradually and I'd recommend running on grass for a few months to get the leg muscles and foot mechanics 'bedded in' before you start on proper roadwork.

A good method of reducing lung spasm problems is to inhale steam (head over a bowl of hot water covered over with a towel) 


Hope this is useful (and reassuring !)

Good luck with the comeback.


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## I like Skol (7 Feb 2011)

Zoiders said:


> Be carefull with the word asthma, every bugger and his dog thinks they have it when in a lot of cases it's lack of fitness and panic attacks - of which I suspect you suffer from neither.




Yep, agree completely with this. My 8 year old son was diagnosed as a toddler following some nasty episodes and I have no doubt he has/had it and especially bad during colds with him ending up in hospital on a few occasions with a nebuliser etc which was nerve wracking and distressing for us at times (poor guy really suffered even at the age of 1-2 yrs old when he would really struggle to get his breath when it was at it's worst).

Now he is older he has one puff of his daily inhalor (purple one) and it controls his asthma so well you would think he doesn't have it anymore, even when he has a bad cold. The problem is that now he is 8 he may be growing out of it or maybe it is just the preventative treatment but, when he does PE at school he always claims to suffer from asthma! I know exercise doesn't affect him, he can ride his bike and play football with me no problem but when he runs around at school and gets out of breath he thinks he is having an asthma attack. It probably doesn't help that he sees a few of his classmates using their inhalors.

I always tell him that even my chest hurts if I go for a run, that's nothing to do with asthma.

Like the OP, I had some colds during Nov and Dec and I would say the last residues have only just cleared in the last week or two so a more serious case like they suffered may take a good while longer to recover from. It could well be summer time before you realise it has been a while since you last felt any after effects.


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## GrumpyGregry (7 Feb 2011)

Zoiders said:


> It's not as common as you think.
> 
> If you keep pestering a doc for that kind of diagnosis they cave in the end and tell you what you want to hear.
> 
> Mentioning fatal asthma attacks doesn't help matters for Sam either.



maybe your doc is that kind of waster. mine isn't. most aren't.


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## slowmotion (7 Feb 2011)

ventoux50 said:


> What is more probable is that following your recent lung infection, even though it has now cleared up, the mucosal lining of the lungs can be left 'thinner' than normal, and is more prone to spasm.
> Spasm is readily elicited by inhaling cold air, and if you train (i.e. increase respiration rate and depth through exercising ) in cold conditions - you run the risk of inducing spasm . . . . . this feels like a tightness of the chest, and an inability to fully fill the lungs and breathe deeply.



Thanks ventoux.
That perfectly describes what seemed to happen to me last November. It took a while to shake it off, and the prolonged cold weather was no help at all.

Good luck Ravenbait.


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## Crackle (7 Feb 2011)

Crackle said:


> You probably don't have it but you may need some inhalors for a period,



See when I said that, what Ireally meant was that 




ventoux50 said:


> Most likely not to be exercise induced asthma - you would no doubt have exhibited symptoms previously if that were the case.
> 
> What is more probable is that following your recent lung infection, even though it has now cleared up, the mucosal lining of the lungs can be left 'thinner' than normal, and is more prone to spasm.
> Spasm is readily elicited by inhaling cold air, and if you train (i.e. increase respiration rate and depth through exercising ) in cold conditions - you run the risk of inducing spasm . . . . . this feels like a tightness of the chest, and an inability to fully fill the lungs and breathe deeply.
> ...


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## accountantpete (7 Feb 2011)

Hopefully it's just the bronchial tubes full of gunge - I'd wait for some better weather and then book an appointment with the nurse for a spirometer test. You blow into a tube connected up to a computer and it prints out the results - mine usually says I have the lungs of a 74 year old!!!


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## Zoiders (8 Feb 2011)

GregCollins said:


> maybe your doc is that kind of waster. mine isn't. most aren't.


Oh stop having a flounce.

Asthma is nowhere near as common as people think it is.


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## Ravenbait (8 Feb 2011)

No fighting please!

Thanks everyone. Shall await the warmer weather and in the meantime work on a steady recovery.

Sam


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## ColinJ (8 Feb 2011)

Zoiders said:


> Asthma is nowhere near as common as people think it is.


Well, how common _is_ it? In the 60s and 70s, I can only remember being at school with one child who suffered from asthma. 

20-odd years later I was at work when a panicky message came over our PA system. Somebody was having an asthma attack and didn't have their inhaler. It was an emergency, they were going blue, did anybody have an inhaler handy? About 20 of the 50-odd people in my office leapt to their feet with inhalers in their hands!

Either a lot of asthma wasn't getting diagnosed 40 years ago, or it is being over-diagnosed now, or something very odd has happened to the population or the environment.


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## Zoiders (8 Feb 2011)

ColinJ said:


> Well, how common _is_ it? In the 60s and 70s, I can only remember being at school with one child who suffered from asthma.
> 
> 20-odd years later I was at work when a panicky message came over our PA system. Somebody was having an asthma attack and didn't have their inhaler. It was an emergency, they were going blue, did anybody have an inhaler handy? About 20 of the 50-odd people in my office leapt to their feet with inhalers in their hands!
> 
> Either a lot of asthma wasn't getting diagnosed 40 years ago, or it is being over-diagnosed now, or something very odd has happened to the population or the environment.


The helicopter parents came into being.


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## ColinJ (8 Feb 2011)

Zoiders said:


> The helicopter parents came into being.


Helicopter parents - I like that term. I don't like the concept much though. 



Wikipedia said:


> Some college professors and administrators are now referring to "Lawnmower parents" to describe mothers and fathers who attempt to smooth out and mow down all obstacles, to the extent that they may even attempt to interfere at their children's workplaces, regarding salaries and promotions, after they have graduated from college and are supposedly living on their own. As the children of "helicopter parents" graduate and move into the job market, personnel and human resources departments are becoming acquainted with the phenomenon as well. Some have reported that parents have even begun intruding on salary negotiations.



_Blimey!_


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## GrumpyGregry (8 Feb 2011)

Zoiders said:


> The helicopter parents came into being.



That is your evidence base? Wow. Case closed then.

And there was me thinking something that kills 1200 people a year in the UK, some of them extremely active and very fit, was a serious medical condition as oppossed to the figment of a neurotic parent's imagination.


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## Zoiders (8 Feb 2011)

GregCollins said:


> That is your evidence base? Wow. Case closed then.
> 
> And there was me thinking something that kills 1200 people a year in the UK, some of them extremely active and very fit, was a serious medical condition as oppossed to the figment of a neurotic parent's imagination.


1200 is an extremely small number.

So small that it makes the chances of dropping dead from something that you shouldnt have mentioned to Sam.


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## GrumpyGregry (8 Feb 2011)

3000 road deaths per annum. Another extremely small number. Is that something else we shouldn't mention?


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## Ravenbait (8 Feb 2011)

Sam is no shrinking violet apt to bouts of hyperchondria and panic attacks about impending fatality on the basis of a comment on an internet forum, but thanks for the concern, Zoiders. I'm grateful for your consideration of my sensibilities and potential for anxiety, however unnecessary it is.

But I'd really appreciate it if you chaps would refrain from hijacking my thread about my dodgy breathing in order to conduct a P&L style debate on the state of the country's healthcare and hypervigilant, risk-averse parents.

Sam


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## ColinJ (8 Feb 2011)

Ravenbait said:


> But I'd really appreciate it if you chaps would refrain from hijacking my thread about my dodgy breathing in order to conduct a P&L style debate on the state of the country's healthcare and hypervigilant, risk-averse parents.


Oh, er, right! 

Back on topic - I sometimes get very wheezy on cold early morning rides (not that I do many of them these days).


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## Garz (8 Feb 2011)

> Either a lot of asthma wasn't getting diagnosed 40 years ago, or it is being over-diagnosed now, or something very odd has happened to the population or the environment.


I would say it's a bit of both. The chief concern is that with high levels of pollution, allergens and other irritants triggering it, it seems to be prevalent. The reasons to explain it's rise could be genetic, childhood exposure or through workplace conditions.

I rarely suffer from it enough to impact my lifestyle too much. I have the blue inhaler and brown (for prevention) issued every couple of years. The main trigger for me seems to be hay fever and normally effects my sleep when it happens.


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## Holdsworth (8 Feb 2011)

I have had asthma since I was young, diagnosed at quite an early age and have had to cope with it as I have gotten back into cycling.

I can usually get by with 2 puffs of the inhaler if I have no large inclines on my route, but as soon as I hit a hill I get breathing trouble and have to take a top up. I had to stop after a climb up to a canal bridge near Church Minshull this afternoon because of it, it was quite steep for at least 100 yards and my body was working hard to get up it and it is that kind of exertion that triggers my asthma. 

A bit of a pain TBH, I don't know how this will affect me if I do the Cheshire Cat sportive in March.


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## Fiona N (9 Feb 2011)

I can't add much advice besides saying - chose your GP carefully in respect of asthma, especially exercise-induced asthma. 

Both my sister and I were diagnosed with EIA as fit, sporty adults within a few months of each other - by our GPs. Our symptoms seemed curiously diverse so we both (independently) looked into it. My sister decided the EIA wasn't a correct diagnosis and paid privately to see a specialist who agreed and looked into her breathing difficulties which turned out to be a thyroid problem! I persisted with the inhaler etc. for a few months before going to live in Italy. While there I noticed that my symptoms were much worse on the WIndcheetah than on a upright. It got to the stage of being frightening with chest pains (like a stone pressing down on my chest) and wheezing even hours after cycling. I decided to see a local doctor as I was getting worried that things were getting worse. It so happened that he was a specialist and pretty quickly organised some tests and from the results decided it wasn't asthma of any stripe but a chronic lung inflammation which appeared to be caused by, and certainly 'attacks' were triggered by, exhaust gas and particulates - thus the greater problem with the low Windcheetah. The treatment was pretty simple and avoidance of cycling in traffic helped. By the time I left Italy 2 years later, I was back to (better than) normal with no symptoms and I've been symptom-free ever since.


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## Sheffield_Tiger (11 Feb 2011)

GregCollins said:


> and quite a few buggers and their canine's labour for years under the misaprehension that it is their lack of fitness causing them problems until asthma is diagnosed. Lack of fitness probably won't kill someone on its own. An asthma attack can.
> 
> Sam, get down the quacks....



Quite...and not all quacks will diagnose it

I remember footballer-now-turned-pastor Stuart Elliott who was banging in goals for Hull City so much that the label of "one man team" was applied - then he lost performance and fitness - many assumed that it was simply that promotion to a faster better division was a step too far - it took quite a few medical opinions to finally get it down to an exercise-induced asthma.

We're talking a professional footballer here too with supposedly top notch medical care, not your average Joe complaining of a bit of a wheeze to a disinterested GP*

(not saying all regular GPs are disinterested but they must get fed up of some of the "the home doctor"-toting hypochondriacs pesterign them for every twinge and sniffle)


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## slowmotion (11 Feb 2011)

I dimly remember reading an article which claimed that one of the reasons for the increase in asthma is the growing popularity of diesel cars. Their exhausts emit greater quantities of PM10 particulates which trigger the condition.

I may have this all scrambled.


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## HLaB (11 Feb 2011)

I don't really know much about Asthma other than my old school mate had it and he was a great cross country runner and won a few races; the other one was the skier (Stuart Baxter) iirc he has started cycle racing so it can be managed by very fit folk. I've doubt you've got though Sam it'll just be your body clearing out things; how long has it been since you gave up the fags?


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## Ravenbait (11 Feb 2011)

HLaB said:


> I don't really know much about Asthma other than my old school mate had it and he was a great cross country runner and won a few races; the other one was the skier (Stuart Baxter) iirc he has started cycle racing so it can be managed by very fit folk. I've doubt you've got though Sam it'll just be your body clearing out things; how long has it been since you gave up the fags?



Um.

I deliberately didn't make a note, because I disagree with the whole philosophy of making a big deal about it. If you tell yourself it's hard and you need to make appointments to the doctor and take special supplements then it's going to BE hard.

We just stopped buying fags and that was an end to it.

Two years ago, ish. Haven't touched them since.

Sam


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## HLaB (11 Feb 2011)

Ravenbait said:


> Um.
> 
> I deliberately didn't make a note, because I disagree with the whole philosophy of making a big deal about it. If you tell yourself it's hard and you need to make appointments to the doctor and take special supplements then it's going to BE hard.
> 
> ...


Good on ye; folk say if you can do it like that its the best way.


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## cycledude231 (14 Feb 2011)

I suffer from the sam symptoms, althoug I am sure I dont suffer from asthma, never had. I carry an inhaler with me on long rides, because I always start getting short of breath and developed a weezy cough towards the end of the ride. After a few squirts from the inhaler it clears up and I can finish well.

After the ride is over, the weezy cough comes back and then just another squirt from the inhaler and its gone. I ve been to the doctor and he reckons its to do with my fitness, im a sure part of it is, but then I am by no means unfit. So I cannot explain my problem, will be getting a second opinion shortly.

Hope yours is not too serious.


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## mr Mag00 (8 Mar 2011)

about 3 years ago i decided to try and lose some weight and get back alevel of fitness not had for a while. started the regime and started to suffer chest pains and wheezing etc. off to the Docs and the tests, chest xray, treadmill etc. great volume and capacity but peak flow dropped after exercise, funnily enough the treadmill showed nothing. I did go to the docs after exercising on anumber of occassions to see effects on the advice. I suspect some of it was due to the weather cold air etc

Asthma nurse discussed with Doc came up with EIA. hmmm I wasnt sure. Taking the preventor never needed the rescue inhaler. 
After a few months i found i was still wheezing so i halved my dose of preventer and all seemed well. spoke with Doc and asthma nurse they were happy with my dose as it worked for me. 

Had a review 3 weeks a go, new nurse, we decided i didnt have eia at all, was due to the regime i had undertaken my level of unfitness at the time. some of the symptoms were and are due to rhinitis allergy, so on a nasal spray for a month to see what happens and eased off the inhaler, to no inhaler at all now. the inhaler was masking my rhinitis issues.

so i suspect Sam some of it is due to the weather and your attempts to return to your previous level of fitness, thats not a diagnosis by the way


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## Flyingfox (8 Mar 2011)

I am one of those unfortunate people who do get exercise induced asthma, and have twice been nearly carted off to hospital.

I take a preventor during the Winter and hayfever seasons and 9 times out of 10 use my blue inhaler before setting of on my commute or cycle ride. The cold air on my lungs has a huge effect on my breathing to the extent that I am unable to run in the Winter.

If you have never suffered from breathing problems previously and don't have any allergies it sounds like your lungs have not fully recovered from your illness. Build up your fitness slowly and stop if your breathing becomes a problem.


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