hello all

hi im a new user, ove been asthmatic all my life, had 2 serious attacks and more little ones, 6 years ago i had my 2nd serious one found it very difficult to recover, i didnt feel i recovered complely for 2 years, anyway last saturday past i did the race for life, completed that finebut i think due to pollens etc for the past few nights ive had acute attacks so much so last night i didnt sleep a wink as i couldnt lie down i hate that feeling. so the doc has nebulised me and given me a course of steriods so im sitting here waiting on them to kick in as i still feel tight, so hi all thats whats been happeing with me hope everyone else is currently well :.)

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hello there

well done on doing the race for life!!!! Im doing one in June, but am going to walk it.

hope youre feeling better soon. take care

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Hi Sara,

Welcome to Asthma UK, I hope you find your way on here and find us a useful source of information and support. I'm sorry to hear that you've having a rough time at the moment.

Just to say, please don't worry about anything that you read on here. This board naturally attracts the small minority of asthmatics who are at the severe end of the spectrum, so you might read accounts of poor control, frequent hospital admissions and even Intensive Care admissions. This is absolutely not typical of asthma as a whole. Asthma should be taken seriously - it can rarely be fatal - but in the vast majority of cases it can be completely or almost completely controlled with little or no interference with day-to-day life once the right combination of medication has been found.

If you are finding that you are getting regular bad attacks now that the summer - and the pollen - is here, do go back to your doctor and see if you need more preventative treatment. Being nebulised and being put on oral steroids will help, of course, but it is very much 'fire-fighting' of an acute attack, and the goal is to prevent the acute attacks happening and disrupting your life! There are many different medications available for asthma, so hopefully if you are struggling with control your GP will be able to find one that suits.

I'm a bit concerned by you saying that you couldn't sleep at all as you were unable to lie down. You don't mention at what point you decided to see the doctor. In future, if you are breathless to the point of being unable to lie down, please do seek medical help sooner rather than later, by calling NHS Direct or your out-of-hours GP, or by dialling 999 if you are really concerned. It's not worth risking the consequences if things were to get worse, and not being able to lie down is not a particularly good sign.

Hope you feel better soon, and do feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Take care

Em H

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Hi Sara and Emily

I am also new on here...I had asthma as a child and suppose 'grew out' of it..But for many years I suffered from endless amounts of chest infections...I moved areas in March last year and therefore had to move to a completely new GP surgery, and I am so glad that I did...My Gp told me that I had got asthma and that it probably never really went away...I was put on Beclometasone and Salbutamol and felt adifference in my chest and breathing within a couple of weeks, and was able to do the activities that I had to stop prior to being diagnosed. I am new to having asthma I suppose ( although having it as a young child, I never really understood about it), and quite scared at times when I can't breathe etc. I am currently having a not very nice time with it atm as I had an attack that required me to go an emergency place to have nebs and was put on steroids...That was 4 weeks ago, I am stillon them now, and my Gp has added Serevent to my inhalers...I still have a hacking cough, but getting used to this now...

I just wanted to say that what Emily has written has slightly put me at ease and also I feel that reading what is in these forums has made me feel no longer alone..I had come to this idea that unless you have asthma you really don't know how someone who has asthma really feels and you canot understand what asthmatics are actually going through.

Sam