Had a phone consultation with my surgery’s asthma nurse this morning. She has decided to put me down for spirometery when they start doing it again.
Mainly I think because I told her that back at Christmas time when I had a horrendous virus - sure it was covid but we didn't really know about it then - because I had so many of the symptoms including altered taste - I did a peak flow and it was half what it would normally have been I had no bother breathing in but I coughed and found it hard to breathe out.
I’m just wondering what the difference is really, it sounds similar but involves some sort of machine rather than a peak flow meter. I’ve also read online that the person doing it won’t be able to tell me the result, that it goes off somewhere then a report is sent to my GP.
Would it show up if I didn’t actually have asthma- I often wonder if I have although I’d say my preventer does increase my peak flow - I never get wheezy or short of breath or need to use my Ventolin so I often wonder if it was mistakenly prescribed.
I got it after I had to lie down and rest one day I was out cycling - I’m a fair weather cyclist and I’ve since discovered I hyperventilate when I cycle up hills - I try to breathe at the same speed my legs are going round at when I’m in a low (?) gear. Which doesn’t work. If I talk to someone while I’m pedalling up a hill I breathe normally and have no problems breathing.
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Fruitandnutcase
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Peak flow is used to monitor your condition. It is quite simply how much air you can push out of your lungs. It is not used to obtain a diagnosis although it can help.
If you are having spirometry done at your GP surgery it is a very simple procedure. You simply blow into a tube as hard and as long as you can.
This gives several measures, but the two most important ones are the fev1 reading, forced expiratory volume in one second, ( the amount of air you breath out in the first second of the test) and fvc , forced vital capacity ( the total amount of air you have breathed out)
The fev1 reading is divided by the fvc and expressed as a percentage. This indicates how well you are breathing.
To diagnose asthma, you do not take your preventer inhalers for 24 hours before the test and you try not to take your blue inhaler for 4hours before the test.
You do your blows into the tube (minimum 3x), take 4 puffs of blue, wait 20 minutes and repeat the 3 blows.
If you have asthma your measurements improve by an increase in fev1 of 12% or more and an increase in volume of 200ml.
In a hospital setting the tests are often full pulmonary function tests. Again you just blow into a tube, but you do a lot more manoeuvres and consequently a lot of different measures are taken, such as total lung volume, residual lung volumes and how well gases transfer from your lungs.
A long winded and possibly confusing reply, but it is nothing to worry about.
Nearly forgot. If it is an asthma nurse at your surgery who is doing it, and she has received full training, she will be able to give you your results, but if this is for the purposes of diagnosis protocol might mean that it has to be the GP, but he should be able to access these fairly quickly on the surgery it system. Results from a hospital take a little longer.
A handheld peak flow meter measures your big airways only. It's a good tool to give you a snapshot of how you're doing on a day-to-day basis but for many of us, even when we're in a bad flare, the peak flow doesn't change much (especially when inflammation is happening in the small airways).
That is where a spirometry test is more useful--it gives you a much more in-depth look at your lung funtion and how you are inhaling and exhaling in both your large and small airways. You do the spirometry test in a little booth with a clothespin type thing on your nose and it usually takes around 5-10 minutes. Ask your doctor to share and explain the results with you and that'll help you better understand your lung function.
It's good you're getting checked out! Always good to be comprehensive when it comes to understanding why/how our asthma changes over time.
Think it’s because I mentioned during my review that when I was ill at Christmas I did a peak flow - not because I was having problems breathing - more just curiosity because I had such an awful cough - and I discovered that my result was half of what it normally was and that I could breath in ok but I couldn’t expell the air into my peak flow properly.
It all sounds interesting, hopefully nothing nasty will appear. Not sure if it’s happening at my surgery or at a hospital, all the nurse said was that ‘they’ aren’t doing them yet but I’m on the list so who knows when / if it will happen.
Hi I would say that if anything you have very mild asthma considering the peak flow rise after ventolin, the spiromtory will show lots of info about the condition of your lungs and 02 saturation versus heart rate, theres lots of info with that test
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Peak Flow Accuracy
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