If you have asthma, what treatment do you use?

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happymusic
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27 Jul 2010, 4:16 pm

I have asthma and try to keep my lung capacity up through exercise and diet. I have an inhaler but don't use it much these days. My allergist a few years ago prescribed some perpetual sort of daily medication, but I was uneasy about it (rightfully so as it was pulled from the market about a month later) and decided not to go on it. He also found that my lungs were working at a decreased capacity compared to those without asthma at my age and he said that as I get older, it will continually decrease so that by 60 it will be considerably worse than others at that age. My response to that was to do more cardio to strengthen my lungs, though I feel there might be more I should do.

So I was wondering how others here manage their asthma. Please tell me about your medications, treatments (conventional, herbal, whatever), exercise, etc.



Moog
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27 Jul 2010, 5:05 pm

Have you ever tried yoga for it, hm? Pranayama (yoga breathing) really does a lot for my (now thankfully few) asthma flareups.


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tcorrielus
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28 Jul 2010, 6:38 pm

I currently use an albuterol inhaler and bring it with me everywhere I go. I use it before I go for a jog.



Herman
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28 Jul 2010, 8:34 pm

I had asthma really bad as a kid, but do to autism/aspie traits I never really used to tell anybody about it. I had it really bad and would be close to death when we did track & cross country running at school. But Ive only just come to terms with all this stuff in my mid 20's

I went and got diagnosed, as having lower than average lung capacity. Asthma & im apparently Atopic too (allergic to everything).

This is despite me doing a massive amount of physical activity compared to the average person, I cycle and do weightlifting everyday. I train to the point of heavy breathing multiple times every single day, yet my lung capacity is still less than average. This sucks, but at least all my symptoms are much much less than when I was younger.

Up until the ago of about 20 I could not casually walk in a group of people, I mean literally around a college capus or to the shops. I would get obscenely out of breath.

I have always been reluctant to medicate. I finally have the drugs, but would only use the mild reliver but I never use the corticosteroids. What has helped me is staying active.

I had a blood test, and it showed I had a unusually high level of haemoglobin. This showed my body was improvising to make up for my bad lungs. Haemoglobin carries oxygen, having more of it allows you to carry more oxygen. Many athletes take illegal drugs like EPO and have blood tranfusions to create the same effect that my body is doing naturally.



kyled
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28 Jul 2010, 11:10 pm

I use an albuterol inhaler for flare-ups. Mine is worse when I have seasonal allergies (Fall where I live), so I have some prescibed allergy medicine that I take at that time of the year, which also helps. Other than that, I have found that keeping in shape helps.



Moog
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29 Jul 2010, 12:35 pm

Herman wrote:
I had asthma really bad as a kid, but do to autism/aspie traits I never really used to tell anybody about it. I had it really bad and would be close to death when we did track & cross country running at school. But Ive only just come to terms with all this stuff in my mid 20's

I went and got diagnosed, as having lower than average lung capacity. Asthma & im apparently Atopic too (allergic to everything).

This is despite me doing a massive amount of physical activity compared to the average person, I cycle and do weightlifting everyday. I train to the point of heavy breathing multiple times every single day, yet my lung capacity is still less than average. This sucks, but at least all my symptoms are much much less than when I was younger.

Up until the ago of about 20 I could not casually walk in a group of people, I mean literally around a college capus or to the shops. I would get obscenely out of breath.

I have always been reluctant to medicate. I finally have the drugs, but would only use the mild reliver but I never use the corticosteroids. What has helped me is staying active.

I had a blood test, and it showed I had a unusually high level of haemoglobin. This showed my body was improvising to make up for my bad lungs. Haemoglobin carries oxygen, having more of it allows you to carry more oxygen. Many athletes take illegal drugs like EPO and have blood tranfusions to create the same effect that my body is doing naturally.


Amazing, wow. Interesting post.


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JakeGrover
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30 Jul 2010, 5:55 am

I just use an Albuterol inhaler. I have reactive airways disease, so, occasionally, my asthma will be really bad.



Blindspot149
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04 Aug 2010, 9:05 am

I used to get hopelessly out of breath up to age 14 when doing sports at school.

Doctors couldn't find a cause.

So I took up running

First time I thought I was going to blow out a lung.

Ran again the next day and the next day and..............by age 17, I was running 3 miles (4.8km) in 14 minutes.


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anthony456
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04 Aug 2010, 4:27 pm

I had a bit of asthma when I was younger, but it was all gone after I took up the the best possible activity for conditioning: swimming. I was on the swim team for a few years and completely resolved the problem. I even won gold medals in backstroke and bronze medals in freestyle regularly. Now I swim when training for football.



NovaKnight
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14 Aug 2010, 11:05 pm

I don't use any of that corticosteroid garbage, its side effects are annoying as heck....
I use an inhaler for emergencies (prolly like 4x a year), when I REALLY have to.

Try exercise. You'll eventually get used to it, and your asthma will get better.



nthach
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25 Aug 2010, 2:19 pm

I only use my inhalers(Qvar and ProAir HFA) during the snowboard season.
Otherwise, I've been doing spin and run once a week and it does help with my breathing. I still need to work on endurance.



Asp-Z
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25 Aug 2010, 3:17 pm

I just use an inhaler. Well, I've had loads of different shaped ones, but essentially it's always been the same drug inside.

The advice I was given was to take it before doing any exercising to prevent anything happening, but also to keep it on me for the duration, just in case.



nthach
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25 Aug 2010, 6:29 pm

Asp-Z wrote:
I just use an inhaler. Well, I've had loads of different shaped ones, but essentially it's always been the same drug inside.

Not really - you have corticosteroids(Qvar, Flovent), short-acting bronchodilators(beta agonists) such as albuterol, and long-acting bronchodilators such as salmetrol and formeterol - which can be used solo or with an corticosteroid such as Advair and Symbicort.

The steroids address inflammation, the beta agonists help prevent bronchial spasms.



Asp-Z
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26 Aug 2010, 5:29 am

nthach wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
I just use an inhaler. Well, I've had loads of different shaped ones, but essentially it's always been the same drug inside.

Not really - you have corticosteroids(Qvar, Flovent), short-acting bronchodilators(beta agonists) such as albuterol, and long-acting bronchodilators such as salmetrol and formeterol - which can be used solo or with an corticosteroid such as Advair and Symbicort.

The steroids address inflammation, the beta agonists help prevent bronchial spasms.


Yes, I two different types, one's blue and one's brown, and they have two different drugs in, but I've had lots of variations on the blue one which were fancy ways of doing the same thing.