Hi, ive recently had pneumonia and i'm recovering from that for a few weeks. They've changed me to fostair and salbutomol inhalers after the antibiotics got rid of the crackling. The weird thing is i have great peak flow (better than ever) but i still have shortness of breath, it feels like something's sat on my chest and feels tight.
Has anyone else experienced it? where your peak flow is brilliant but still have intrusive breathing issues.
thanks if you can help
Hi, that sounds rough - glad you're recovering, but it can take a while! I haven't had pneumonia, but just had a viral infection with RSV which is being a pain and caused a hospital admission, plus viral symptoms dragging on and asthma still being annoying. The asthma nurse specialist I saw said yes, it takes ages to go, so I can imagine pneumonia would, whether bacterial or viral - it's a serious infection especially with asthma.
A few basic questions, apologies if these are obvious.
-Did you have asthma diagnosed already before you had pneumonia? I wasn't sure from your post if you already had it or they'd just diagnosed you.
-If you already had asthma, do you know your best peak flow (as opposed to your predicted)? They can be quite far apart - my predicted is about 450-470, my actual best is 630 so 'brilliant' needs to be viewed a bit differently. For me this is from playing the oboe for years, but if you are/were very sporty and active that can push your best up too, even if it's not current.
I have severe asthma and my peak flow is a bit weird. I sometimes get told by other people 'oh I wish I had a peak flow that high' - well, actually I wish I didn't, because it doesn't seem to improve my control and it seems to make me look ok when I'm not; I'd happily swap it for better control even if the numbers weren't as impressive. What I find is that it drops a bit, but not as much as you'd expect for the attack (eg I can have a severe attack, be sitting in A&E and while my peak flow won't be at its best, it will still be above 50% of my best. I can have low oxygen and need a lot of treatment - peak flow won't drop below 50%. Then less severe attack but still admitted - below 50%. I've given up using the number by itself, as I find that it works better to see how it responds to salbutamol - usually it goes up a lot, but it's about how much it goes up and how long that lasts.
I'm wondering if you've tried doing peak flow before and after salbutamol to see what happens, for a start? I can take my Ventolin at 500 which is 'green' and still have 20% reversibility afterwards, which is over the level required for a diagnosis of asthma.
The other thing to note is that peak flow is really a measure of the large airways - it doesn't necessarily measure small airway issues accurately or the alveoli which are infected in pneumonia (any medical people feel free to correct me if I have this wrong). So you may have obstruction in smaller airways, or the breathless feeling might be left over from the pneumonia itself and not really be asthma - so I was wondering how your peak flow responds.
Hope this helps! You may also find the Asthma UK nurse helpline useful - they're very friendly and expert so you should be able to talk it all through.
Hope you feel better soon.
I saw my GP last Friday because my chest has been bad for a good few weeks with coughing and wheezing and coughing stuff up. She listened to my breathing and said that the chest sounds fine.
After six days of prednisolone I have taken my peak flow for the first time for ages. The score wasn't bad for me (350). But my chest feels like it has an iron band being squeezed around it.
I was interested in Lysistrata's comment that peak flow measures the large airways. In short I can find peak flow a reliable indicator of trouble. But at other times it isn't.
I was just going to post a similar question.
I'm 5 days post a severe asthma exacerbation and my chest feels just as tight and heavy today as it did when I was first admitted to hospital.
My peak flow is normally 490, and today is 450 so I know my asthma is stabilising, my salbutamol is giving a little relief but not loads other than making me tachycardic 🙈
Think I just need to relax and get some proper sleep (4 nights in hospital with hardly any sleep)
Hey! This is one thing that has made my asthma so difficult to be taken seriously. I suffer with terrible breathlessness but my peak flow rarely drops.
My asthma specialist has never been too concerned about this, so my guess has been that it might be more common than we think. She mentioned before that it’s only method of measuring lung function. Since then, my asthma plan (based on PF) has been withdrawn but I still have an emergency pack of Pred.
I’m seeing her on Thursday so if I get any other answers regarding this, I’ll let you know 👍🏽
peak flow 
If my peak flow has always been low what will spirometry reveal?
Probiotics and Peak Flow Improvement
Shortness of Breath
