Can anyone give me some advice

Hi, I am new to this site, although i have had asthma for many years the last few months have been horrendous.

I have been in and out of hospital three times and been on prednisilone since june. I was put on 60mg in hospital and now evertime i reduce down and stop i end up back on it, i am currently on 30mg.The consultant at hospital says i have something called brittle asthma, can anyone tell me what this means?

I feel constantly short of breath and seem to be coughing all the time, especially at night, so subsequently i am always tired as spend all night coughing!!

I am getting really fed up as havent manage to work properly for last six weeks and my asthma seems to be controllign evrything i do, which has never been the case in the past. Has anyone got any suggestions for what i can do?

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Brittle asthma

Hi Harding301,

Sorry to hear you've been having problems. There are quite a few of us on this site with brittle asthma. There is a topic further down on the 'Medical' page called 'Brittle asthma' which has some more discussion of what it is, and here are some web sites which also give some explanation:

fnsg.azerty.co.uk/brittle.htm

lunguk.org/brittle-asthma.a...

thorax.bmjjournals.com/cgi/... (for doctors - more technical)

Remember, though, when you're reading these, that even among brittle asthmatics there is a wide variation in severity: some are able to work full time, and others are pretty much housebound. Remember too that some consultants use the phrase brittle asthma very differently to others: some use it according to strict definitions and others seem to use it to mean any asthma that is more than usually difficult to control. Brittle asthma should really be diagnosed and managed by a centre with a special interest in difficult to control asthma, like Heartlands in Birmingham or the Brompton in London.

Hope this helps and you find some answers

Em H

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Thanks for the info Em

I am brittle type 1 athmatic but have not fully understood what it meant.

[RichardFriedel]

Well as a recovered asthmatic I do think people will someday get wise to asthma drugs and stop taking them as insidious  starter drugs causing chronic illness and doping in many different sports.. Although people like researching even the most absurd asthma topics  asthma topics they turn a blind eye to the simple fact that finger pressure on a lip will deepen breathing and relieve suffering like a spray   Not that this is a real asthma cure, but the fact that it is not researched is very queer.   So with my mistrust  I do recommend  Strelnikova exercises,  Here Asthma is reversed by switching over from asthmatic breathing throught the mouth to energetic loud nose inhaling.  For a convincing video in English google for "Strelnikova exercise to reduce asthma attacks".  This leads to a comprehensive video of an expert with his very young daughter