Hello. Well as the title to this one says i am new to asthma as a patient. I am carer to my husband who has been asthmatic for about 25 years and is now at the stage of COPD instead of asthma. He also has osteo and psoriatic arthritis and menieres syndrome. He has had 3 bouts of pneumonia in the last 4 months and he lost both his parents within 8 weeks so things have been difficult to say the least. In the last few months i have been having lots of unexplained coughs and wheeziness and hubby was pretty sure i was showing all the signs of asthma. As with most carers i found it difficult to get time to get a doctors appointment but a couple of really scary spells forced my hand and lo and behold hubby was right (just this once mind) and our GP agreed. GP has started me initially on ventolin with 2 puffs 3 times a day (more if i need it). He is hoping that i can control it fairly easily with just ventolin and that within a couple of weeks i can just be using the ventolin as required. He also added a very gentle and nicely put comment about losing some weight but did also admit that exercise may well aggravate things at first. I am also going to have blood tests done for rheumatic arthritis as i've been having a lot of joint problems too!
Oh well i suppose i could start blaming it all on my age! Anyway sorry for all the waffle but just thought i would say hello!