Coughing

I have been told that I should be able to recognise when I am going to have an attack.

The only symtom I get is a cough, this usually comes just as I'm going to bed and first thing in the morning.

I have for along time even before I was told that I had asthma cough up phlagm(not spelt correctly) but the doc wasn't interested.

Can anyone tell me what other early symtoms i can try and spot please.

i was told I had asthma in Sept.04

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Hi like you I only really cough although I did find that before my inhaler was changed I could tell if I was struggling by not only a coughing fit but also struggling to breathe. Other than that I think its different for each person. I prob am not rightperson to answer this cause I wouldn't say I have everhad an attack though I have had coughing fits, Tight chest etc.

Katharine

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Hi Peter,

Think it can vary from person to person as to how you can know an attack is coming on - have you read the trhead on itchy chins? You'll start to know your own body and your warning signs soon, adn when you do - just beware of them!

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Hi Katharine, That's my trouble, I start coughing this then developes into difficulty in breathing, problem was the other day my blue inhaler didn't help, ended up being taken to hospital for treatment.

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coughing

Hi

Like you Peter, coughing is often a sign of problems but I am often unaware I am even doing it as it happens so often and comes on gradually.

I have found being aware of my triggers and potential exposure to them helps, eg this hot, muggy waether is a problem for me.

I also keep a very accurate chart of my peak flow am and pm before taking medication, along with a record of my salbutamol use as this often goes up slightly a day or two before a bad attack.

If you see the asthma nurse at your GP surgery she can help and advise you how to do all this. Charts for recording info are downloadable from this site or from your asthma nurse.

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Hi Molly, many thanks for that info.

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Hi Peter - following another posting about keeping records of your peak flow reading I thought I would mention that there is a fantastic programme that you can download free of charge called Asthma Assistant.

Initially you fill in all your details such as best peak flow reading, your asthma triggers and a list of your meds. After that you enter your peak flows twice a day and can also add additional information such as symptoms, how often you use your reliever, whether your asthma has prevented you from exercising and so on. It will collate this information into different types of chart for you - for example the basic information chart shows your daily peak flow reading (morning and evening) for the month, what percentage of your best PF these readings are, how often you have been in your green, yellow or red zones, diurnal variations and so on. It is an excellent report to print out and take to your GP or asthma nurse. It is also very useful to enable you to see if there is a downward trend in your PF readings which might indicate a deterioration.

I am pretty certain that someone on this site recommended it in a posting months and months ago. I do not have the website address but someone else might know it or it will probably show up on a search engine.

Sorry to repeat if you already knew about it but I thought it was worth mentioning again.

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Hi coughingannie,

Thanks for all the info, no I did not know about that site. Will try and find it, but if anyone else knows of it that would be great if they can tell me.

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asthmaassistant.com/

this is the link for the program coughieannie was telling u about, v useful tool

hugs

Scampy

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Scampy,

Many thanks for that, has saved me time searching for it.