I’ve been going through chest/sinus congestion on and off for the past 7 to 8 weeks and I think one of my doctors finally got it right (instead of sending me home, antibiotics for sinus infection, etc). She suggested that I probably have some alergy-induced asthma and told me to clean up my house a bit more often and gave me an albuterol inhaler. This seemed to help me immediately. This was yesterday. So I don’t know if I’ll have these symptoms for the long term or if it’ll be an on and off sort of thing. I’ve done some research and the albuterol doesn’t seem to be a long term solution. In my doctor’s defense, I think she’s starting me with the least amount of meds. She mentioned an inhaled or oral steroid as next steps.
I have a half IM on Sunday that I’ve been trying to salvage despite some poor training the last few weeks (see above). I went for a 30 minute swim today and didn’t feel too good. Lots of coughing. I realized I should’ve used the inhaler prior to exercising. Stupid. I obviously need to try this and see how things go before attempting the race. But, I’m wondering if anyone has an experience like mine because I’m considering racing with just the albuterol handy?
I’m totally new to this asthma/allergy thing, so I know pretty much nothing. I have an appointment with a specialist in about two weeks (one week after race day).
Eric
WOW that sucks. I also have asthma so I feel your pain.
Yea, use your albuterol before exercising. I’m not a doc so I can’t tell you weather you should race or not. I’m not sure anyone on the forum can…doc’s included. Take a puff off your albuterol and go for an “easy” run. If you have any SOB, coughing “I” would bag the race. If you can’t run easy I would think swimming might be a problem, as you found out.
On the up side, you have an appointment with a specialist and he should get things under control for you.
Good luck.
glucocortico steroids are the mainstay of treating asthma. your inhaler is called a rescue inhaler for a reason. You should though be proactive, if exercise causes you to have a bronchospasm, pre-empt it with the inhaler. If you find you are using the inhaler lots, then get the steroid.
I can’t tell you to race/not race either but if you indeed have Asthma rest assured that most likely you will need meds to help regulate it. I have Asthma as well and this spring/early summer has been very bad. My doc actually increased my dosage of Advair and that has helped quite a bit. Long story short work closely with your docs and they will get you figured out and it shouldn’t slow you down once you’re on them. Hang in there and use your rescue inhaler before you workout.
Get on the inhaled corticosteroids. It will take about 2 weeks or so before they take effect.
I had similar issues earlier this year. Had a chest infection- killed my lung power. Lungs felt super sensitive after illness (like anything would make me sick again). Got on Asmanex- felt quite a bit better .
I have suffered with exercise and allergy induced asthma my entire life. It is pretty much routine for me to hit my albuterol inhaler a couple of times before any exercise. I do carry it with me during my rides and runs but I very rarely need it a second time. If I’m doing a tri I find that if I use the inhaler before the swim I don’t need to use it before biking or running, but I still carry it with me just in case. One word of caution for you…every now and then I will feel a little “jittery” after using the inhaler. It’s kind of like a mild coffee buzz. It doesn’t last very long and my heart rate doesn’t increase but if you are prone to pre-event nerves like I am the inhaler could amplify them a bit. Still, I would never race or train without using it first.
I’m not sure where you live but this has been the worst spring/summer for my allergies in my entire life.
Hey Brian, long time no talk.
What Brian says is consistent with what my doctor recommended. I only need the inhaler once in a while, so no steroids for now. However, if you are concerned you will have trouble, a couple of puffs beforehand will prevent problems, whereas a couple of puffs when you are having problems only partially resolves them.
Disclaimer: This is my personal experience. Your mileage may vary.
If you need to take a puff of your albuterol/ventolin, i.e. “rescue haler,” before you exercise, then your asthma is not under very good control.
I’ve had asthma and allergies since I was very young and most of my asthma incidents are now allergy driven-which, according to your doctor is what likely caused your asthma. I am surprised that she did not recommend that you try some OTC allergy meds to start before you see the specialist (I’d say zyrtec would be your best bet as it’s good for inside and outside allergies and right now you don’t know what type of allergy you may have). Definitely get tested for allergies (btw-if you take the OTC allergy meds you will need to come off of them for a few days before they do the allergy testing).
Besides steroids, pill or inhaled, there are other non-steroid options for treating asthma-such as singulair (which is approved for both asthma and allergies) or intal. There’s also a new shot that’s out there for allergy-based asthma (xolair), but you have to meet certain parameters to be eligible for this. If your asthma is allergy based you’re better off messing with different allergy med combos and minimizing use of steroids for the asthma. Your specialist should be able to get you to a place where you have hardly any trouble breathing and do not need to use albuterol (it may take some time, but you should get there and meds may have to be adjusted if your asthma or allergies become worse-which tends to be the case). Albuterol/ventolin is only supposed to be used as a rescue-haler and NOT a preventative (because it isn’t a preventative-it does not treat the underlying inflammation which will kick-start an asthma attack).
Good luck and hope your race goes well!
I was diagnosed with asthma this spring. The steriod/long term inhalers take 2-4 weeks to work, so the albuterol is the stop gap measure until they can figure out what is causing the asthma (allergy tests etc).
Take the inhaler 30 min before exercising. 2 puffs. Then carry it with you. Swimming seems to be where I notice I need it the most (if I forget to take it I can’t do more than 300yds of swimming w/out completely falling apart). I can bike (just no real hills) w/o it, and i can run (recovery and near endurance pace, but NO tempo or threshold workouts) w/o taking the inhaler 30 min before.
I raced IMAZ with the inhaler in my bento box on the bike (the ENTIRE reason I put the bento box on there is so I had the inhalerr) and then in the back pocket of my tri shorts on the run. Didn’t have to use it.
I raced Honu with it the same way and did use it in T2.
My doctor told me that once they figure out the right long term inhaler/steroid inhaler thing, I won’t need the albuterol (unless the VOG gets really bad over here), we’ve not gotten anywhere close to figuring out the right dose of the long term inhaler.
Thanks, everyone.
I’ve tried Claritin a couple times and my doctor suggested that I try using it more consistently to see what happens.
Obviously I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and was wondering why things were really bad all of a sudden (I experienced some really bad coughing fits over the last four days), and I realized that I replaced my refrigerator about 5 days ago because it burnt out. It left my house smelling like an electrical fire for a couple days, so now I’m thinking this is the main culprit for my recent attacks. I feel pretty much normal this morning. I’ll see how a forty minute ride goes tonight with taking the albuterol 30 minutes beforehand.
I live in Seattle by the way, but I’m from San Diego. I’d say things are worse for me here. Maybe this is my chance to convince my fiance that we need to move to a warmer, drier climate, like Montana or Colorado (sort of my dream)!