Asthma

Kitty

So, I've had my brown inhaler this morning, still not feeling too good, blue inhaler helps for a while, and I've got to go staff training later on (lifeguard pool training) which two weeks ago I had my first asthma attack in...

Any tips on how to calm it down?

Mark_K

Strange thing is with my asthma i have found that I'm more lightly to get a attack if I'm dehydrated in this weather! So I've been making a real conscious effort to drink more water and its really helped keep asthma attacks at bay this year so far !!! It may just be me being odd though lol

Kitty

Well I do drink a lot of water anyway, especially at work as thats all we're allowed on poolside.

Nik_B

Get seritide instead of that brown inhailer. Also a puff of ventolin before exercise.

Weather has a big effect on my asthma, now it is warm and very humid it's worse. Also Asthmatics tend to have alergies which set it off.

Tentacles

As Nik_B said, taking the blue one before exercise is far better than waiting until you get the dreaded wheeze!

Up until the last few months i'd been taking it once i felt everything tighten and by then it was a bit on the late side!

Eranu

I would alos get a green inhaler if you can, made a big difference to my asthma.

Justinjured

Ask your doctor to provide you with a symbicourt turbohaler. Its a preventative & blue one all in one. Its much much stronger and lasts much longer. The only problem is is that they are quite expensive for the surgey so some doctors are relutanct to prescribe them.

Ive been using them for a few years now are they are quite amazing.

Kitty

That the purple ones?

TimesLikeThese

Hi Kitty
Sucks to suddenly get asthma - happened to me last year and they called it exercise induced asthma.

You dont say how long you've been on the brown inhaler. Normally it takes a week or two to build up in your system for it to be effective. So if it was your first time this morning then you need to give it time. As has been said - the blue inhaler should be taken 15 mins before anything that would normally trigger it and then as needed.

There are different things that can trigger it, some people I know have to hoover their matress daily as the dust build up is too much for them, or it could be an allergy to something. I think you can get tested for that.

So I'd say give the brown inhaler a chance to work before you jump to something else, but do push your doc if you feel its not working. Then try to get a referral to a breathing specialist at the hospital where they can test and advise you on anything that would work better for you.

Good luck

gettricky

I get pretty bad ashtma, very annoying I have to work double what everyone else I ride with does because I cannot get my breath. Prevention always better than cure. Also, I take alergy and hayfeaver tablets before I ride and this also helps, asthma is often triggered by similar things to hayfeaver, along with dust and all the other good things you get MTB'ing.

The main thing to keep in mind is to stay calm, if your chest is ever tight and you don't have an inhaler, don't try to force big breaths, this will make it worse and you'll feel like you're not getting hair and panic. Take small breaths and control your breathing, focusing on being calm and breathing consistantly. See:

http://www.btinternet.com/~andrew.murph ... thing.html

I use brown and blue, but seeing doctor tomorrow so might ask for the Turbo one cause I'm off to Alps next week, ALTITUDE!!!

woody-som

Kitty,

Take the blue ventolin 10 mins before exercise, 1 or 2 puffs, and the brown steroid inhaler is usually a twice daily preventer, and takes several weeks for it to build up and work.
The green one mentioned above it serevent, and is an add-on to the brown, but only if your peak flows don't settle, and is basically a long lasting version of ventolin, and the effects last around 12 hours.
The purple one (seretide) is a combination of a steroid, and serevent, but this is only given when it's shown your symptoms are controlled using the two separate inhalers.


I notice that you work at a pool, and suffer when there, what is the chlorine levels. The free chlorine should be between 1 and 3 parts per million, and the combined chlorine should have a recomended maximum of 1 ppm, but I went in a pool that was 2.5 times that, just once, and hence I got asthma in return.

chris

Kitty

The chlorine does vary due to it being a old pool but actually working there helps actually, the doctor thinks its the humidity that helps it. They have changed the cleaning stuff recently and that is awful and set me off last week so I'm watering it down a lot more now.

jamLCFC

Justinjured wrote:

Ask your doctor to provide you with a symbicourt turbohaler. Its a preventative & blue one all in one. Its much much stronger and lasts much longer. The only problem is is that they are quite expensive for the surgey so some doctors are relutanct to prescribe them.

Ive been using them for a few years now are they are quite amazing.

Symbicourt is the patron saint of Asthmatics. My doc put me on it and it ha made a whole world of difference. It is pretty expensive and experimental so not all surgerys are offering it out.

I can now go a couple of days (with exercise) and not use my inhaler at all. In fact if it wasnt for 25 years of carrying one around i probably dont even need to take it waith me.

ya gotta lourve Symbicourt !!

My doc put me on it and to keep costs down he will only give me one per perscription. All i do is save up a number of scripts, apply for a 3 month prepayment and then cram as amany as i can in whilst the prepay is still valid.


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mugs

A bit late seeing this thread, but wanted to add to it for all asthmatics out there, get your method for taking the inhaler reviewed. I'd had asthma pretty severly for 33 years, and switching from becotide to seretide helped a lot for me, but by far and away the biggest change of my life was when a friend of my wifes was around our house and saw me taking my inhaler.

Now I knew she was a nurse, what I didn't know was she was a COPD specialist, and had many many years experience dealing with people with severly depleted lung function.

Previously, every time I'd been to an ashma clinic, or had a review with a doctor or been submitted to hospital following an attack I had the whole 'show me how you take your inhaler' speil, and apparently I was doing it right.

Wrong! my friends wife gave me a verbal bollocking and showed me how to do it right, just with normal breathing, timing of the release, etc...I can't describe it in words, but basically instead of taking a deep breath and holding, you just breathe normally. If you have an expansion chamber it's even better, but it transformed the effects of both the preventative and reactive inhalers within days, and now I can go many days without even needing my ventolin.

So yeah if you're doing the 'deep breath and hold' method, get an asthma review, ask about techniques and if they show you how you've been doing it so far, ask them if they're aware of any other methods, if they're not then question them, ask them how patients who can't take deep breaths are meant to do it etc...gotta be worth a go. It properly transformed my life, no kidding (although I am mildly upset that it took 33 years and countless 'experts' getting it wrong only for me to stumble across this by chance - makes me think of all the wasted years when I could potentially have been much more active if the drugs I was taking had been administered correctly)

TimesLikeThese

Thats pretty amazing mugs.
Had a review where the nurse watched me take a deep breath and hold for 20 seconds as I'd been previously instructed and she never said anything.

Surf-Matt

Our little boy was diagnosed with it this week (10 months old)...
However as he's under one it's apparently called viral induced wheezing. Poor little thing but he's being very brave!

woody-som

the correct technique is a deep in-breath and hold. look at www.asthma.org.uk

dsmiff

I now use an expander for taking the seratide, works much better, gurenteed to get the correct dose.

Other thing with the expander is that you can still take a puff of the blue if you are suffering pretty bad symptoms at the time, especially this like chest infections / flu. As when I'm bad I can't breath in enough to get a dose.

Hey one good thing with Asthma is we get the swine flu jab when it's out (every cloud!)

galltay

The importance with any of the pressurised preventer inhalers (becotide, seretide etc) is to use a "spacer" with them. The powder"sticks where it hits" and coming out at 30mph, that's mainly the back of your throat. You don't want it there, so slow it down with an expansion chamber or "spacer". The evidence is that it increses the proportion in your lungs from less than 10% to about 50%.

"Asthma" is a very dodgey diagnosis to make in a little one. Yes, if they gets lots of "viral-induced wheezing" and there is asthma or eczema in the family, it's odds on that they might end up with it. But if not, keep your fingers crossed and he may turn out to be ok.

andrewjoseph

I've had exercise induced asthma twice in the last 10 years, the first one (about 10 years ago) came on quick when I started mountain biking. As I got fitter it eased off after 10 months or so and i stopped taking any meds.

It came back with a vengeance last Christmas, for no reason I could think of.

Anyway, in February, I got fed up of having 'hay fever' all year round, so went and got checked out for allergies. Turns out I'm sensitive to lots of things, but the worst offenders are wheat and diary products. (so cream cakes are out! )

I have stopped eating these foodstuffs (where I can), and my asthma has improved dramatically. If for any reason i have too much wheat or milk i can feel my chest tightening soon after.

I take my becotide in the morning (1 puff) and that's it for most of the time, whereas I was taking becotide 2 puffs twice a day, and ventolin several times in between.

If I'm planning a heavy ride I take a puff ventolin before I set out, and only rarely will I need a puff when out on a ride.

I'm not saying this is the answer for everyone, but it might be worth a try, even if it just means taking the ventolin a bit less.

XxxBFGxxX

andrewjoseph wrote:

I've had exercise induced asthma twice in the last 10 years, the first one (about 10 years ago) came on quick when I started mountain biking. As I got fitter it eased off after 10 months or so and i stopped taking any meds.

It came back with a vengeance last Christmas, for no reason I could think of.

Anyway, in February, I got fed up of having 'hay fever' all year round, so went and got checked out for allergies. Turns out I'm sensitive to lots of things, but the worst offenders are wheat and diary products. (so cream cakes are out! )

I have stopped eating these foodstuffs (where I can), and my asthma has improved dramatically. If for any reason i have too much wheat or milk i can feel my chest tightening soon after.

I take my becotide in the morning (1 puff) and that's it for most of the time, whereas I was taking becotide 2 puffs twice a day, and ventolin several times in between.

If I'm planning a heavy ride I take a puff ventolin before I set out, and only rarely will I need a puff when out on a ride.

I'm not saying this is the answer for everyone, but it might be worth a try, even if it just means taking the ventolin a bit less.

i see wat ya saying about alerges i have to take alergy tablets some days i can feel my chest is tight as hel. i may go and get a alerge test done

chunkyboy

I had a severe chest infection a couple of years ago and was unable to fully shift it even after a course of strong anti biotics. The cough and catarrh would just not go away. After several visits to my GP and several checks/tests for this and that my GP came to the conclusion i'd got asthma. I was prescrbibed a brown inhaler (preventer) and a blue inhaler (reliever) and instructed to the use brown inhaler daily, morning and night, 2 puffs each time and to use the blue inhaler when needed.
I've never had an asthma attack and if i'm honest i can go several days without using either of my inhalers but i can feel a difference when i do use them. However i do find that when i go out on my bike or do any other sort of exercise that gets me breathing hard/fast my chest will feel a bit on the tight side. To help with this i use both my inhalers before i go on my bike/do exercise i am fine but i always carry them with me as i do occasionally (and it is occasionally) need the blue one during exercise. I've also noticed that i get more coughs/colds/bad chest since beng diagnosed with asthma and started using inhalers, before i had asthma i was very rarely ill with coughs/colds etc.

andrewjoseph

chunkyboy, you need to take the preventer regularly for it to do any good, it is a long term medication that acts slowly. it is a preventer, taking it when your chest is tight and at the same time as the reliever is not making best use of the med. take it regularly and you may not need the reliever so much.

i have have reduced my medication slowly over several months, cutting down one puff at a time for a few weeks, if there is no problem I cut out another puff.

chunkyboy

Andrewjoseph, i see from your earlier post that you are on 2 inhalers, is the Becotide for prevention? My preventer is called Clenil Modulite. When i said that i can go several days without my inhalers i wasn't saying that i do it as a regular thing it's just a case of me forgetting to take them but generally i'm pretty good and do take my reliever as prescribed.

andrewjoseph

chunkyboy wrote:

Andrewjoseph, i see from your earlier post that you are on 2 inhalers, is the Becotide for prevention?

yes it is.

My preventer is called Clenil Modulite. When i said that i can go several days without my inhalers i wasn't saying that i do it as a regular thing it's just a case of me forgetting to take them but generally i'm pretty good and do take my reliever as prescribed.

I put my becotide on my bedroom dressing table, I put my glasses and watch next to it. This reminds me to take them at night and in the morning when i put my glasses on.

I have my few ventolin (reliever) inhallers around the place. One in my riding backpack, one in my car and one or two around the house next to keys and things I'll need when I go out.

Try to have a few spare meds so it doesn't matter too much if you run out. Apologies if you are my granny and already know how to suck eggs.

andrewjoseph

chunkyboy wrote:

Andrewjoseph, i see from your earlier post that you are on 2 inhalers, is the Becotide for prevention?

yes it is.

My preventer is called Clenil Modulite. When i said that i can go several days without my inhalers i wasn't saying that i do it as a regular thing it's just a case of me forgetting to take them but generally i'm pretty good and do take my reliever as prescribed.

I put my becotide on my bedroom dressing table, I put my glasses and watch next to it. This reminds me to take them at night and in the morning when i put my glasses on.

I have my few ventolin (reliever) inhallers around the place. One in my riding backpack, one in my car and one or two around the house next to keys and things I'll need when I go out.

Try to have a few spare meds so it doesn't matter too much if you run out. Apologies if you are my granny and already know how to suck eggs.

woody-som

I take seretide twice a day to prevent attacks, but also have exercise induce asthma, so take a couple of puffs of ventolin 10-20 mins before exercise, and also have recently added a tablet (singulair) as a daily thing, as I would get a persistant cough after exercise that lasted for 48 hours, that has now gone.

XxxBFGxxX

i dont realy use my blue ones any more aslong as i keep using the preventor i am fine. but wen i push i need the blue not often tho i can norm just manage

gcwebbyuk

chunkyboy, I suddenly "got" asthma the same as you from a chest infection.

Never had an asthma attack, but I can feel a little wheezy sometimes.

I used my brown inhaler for 2 puffs twice a day, but then after about 8 months, it went down to one puff twice a day.

I do keep a blue inhaler on me at all times, just in case, and always have a puff or two before going out on the bike or doing any excersise.

militiacore

As mentioned earlier in the thread diet can play a role in reducing the effects of Asthma. Try and minimise foods that can cause a histamine reaction such as wheat, dairy, processed sugar such as milk chocolate and alcohol. These foods can be easily recognised as they tend to cause sinus.