Maybe my doc was a bit lax.
I originally got wheezy after a bad cold getting on for two years ago. Thinking back I had been intermittently wheezy at nights for years but thought everyone else was too!
Anyway, the doc dished out a blue inhaler with instruction to see how I got on with it and said that I probably didn't have asthma. I tended to disagree with him as the salbutamol definitely improved my breathing.I used it pretty regularly for a month or so and then everything seemed to clear up during the summer (when hay fever kicked in instead!).
Anyway, over a period of a year or so I got back to being wheezy, at nights mostly, again. Cold air was a bad trigger, especially if tied in with a bike ride. I would often start rides slightly wheezy but after a while, as long as I took it steady, my breathing seemed to improve.
Anyway, the long and short of it was that I got to be wheezing more and more often, and not just at nights. I picked up a cold and got to the stage where I needed to go on all fours when I reached the top of the stairs to get my breath back! I had a pretty poor weekend of waking up every two or three hours needing my inhaler and had huge coughing fits that seemed to suck all the air out of me. My wife was concerned enough to tell me to sleep in the next room but to bang something if I thought I was dying so she could phone an ambulance!
When I went back to the docs on the Monday morning they put me on steroid tablets and then on a preventer. I had a few issues with the medication (!!) but have now been on my current preventer for about two and a half months.
The good news is that my breathing is brilliant. I hadn't realised how poor it had been getting before it finally gave out. My peak flow was at that point about half what it should have been. My current inhaler flixotide really seems to do the trick. I have since had a couple of colds (we have young kids who are always snotty). Normally a simple cold would be enough for me to be on the blue inhaler for weeks, but with the preventer I haven't needed the blue inhaler at all.
I took a pre ride shot of salbutamol before the Holme Moss loop ride and the reliever with me but didn’t need it despite it being absolutely freezing and a pretty hard ride for me after all the lay offs I have been having recently.
So my experience so far has been quite positive. One thing I would advise is that if you feel your breathing is getting worse then don't struggle on / go into denial like I did. I think I am probably only very mildly asthmatic, and looking back I was wheezy as a very active teenager so maybe I have always had a tendency that way. Managing my asthma has meant that my breathing is now better than I can ever remember – and that includes periods when I rowed in the national championships, climbed alpine peaks, did Scottish winter mountaineering etc
This is a bit of a rambling response I am afraid Kirstie. I suppose the point I am trying to make is that you definitely need to monitor how your breathing is. However, you shouldn’t feel like you are somehow crippled or limited in any way.
so any encouragement and reassurance would be appreciated.
