Undiagnosed asthma?

Hello,

For some years I have had some breathing difficulties on exertion/exercise, but recently (last 6 months or so) it has been getting a lot worse, and I've been out of breath more quickly and taking longer to recover.Although I exercise regularly I only do weights and not running or other ""aerobic"" exercises as they have always made me struggle for breath. A few weeks back after finishing a weight training session I could not recover my breath an d was given oxygen by the assistants. SInce then I have had a number of similar but not as bad ""incidents"" which I think have been exacerbated, but not caused, by the associated anxiety you have when breathing is impaired.

I have been to my GP, had a chest xray which was clear and am waiting for further tests.

About 5 years ago I had a similar period and although he was ""guessing"" the condition my then GP gave me a reliever to use before exercise. Rather foolishly I was worried about becoming dependent on it or that it would make it worse if my condition was mild, so I used it a few times and then stopped and decided to make do without it.

I still have the reliever (blue) but wonder whether it is safe to use it if I feel desperate while waiting for the GP and consultants to diagnose me properly.

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Your doctor has given you the inhaler to see if it helps. I'd say use it. The doc would have given you a time to go back (eg week, fortnight,month) to have a look the situation again and see if there was a difference when you used the inhaler.

I have always been able to take part in sport with being asthmatic and swam in compitions. Done running, football, rugby anything and everything I had a go at it. I know this isn't the case for all those with asthma.

There is something that you will need to do though and it may sound silly at first but it's to learn if you are out of breathe because you have exersised or because you are ill. Then you will know within you won't have any doubt as to when you should take the inhaler.

There are issues with taking the reliver whilst competing in sport with doping issues as it is on the banned list of medications. However, if you get your doctor to write a letter that you keep hold of and hand over before a race or a prescription with the repeat side that you keep with a list of what you are using. Then they know there is a medical reason for you having to use it rather than you cheating.

Swimming is a really good sport for asthma because of the rhytmic breathing. It helps exercise the lungs.