Exercising With Asthma

Yes you can still exercise even if you have asthma. I was asthmatic myself when I was younger, but it didn’t stop me from being active since I was a kid till now.

Asthma is a predisposition to chronic inflammation of the lungs in which the airways (bronchi) are reversibly narrowed. Asthma affects 7% of the population of the United States, and 300 million worldwide.

During asthma attacks (exacerbations of asthma), the smooth muscle cells in the bronchi constrict, the airways become inflamed and swollen, and breathing becomes difficult.

Common symptoms of asthma in a steady-state include: nighttime coughing, shortness of breath with exertion but no dyspnea at rest, a chronic ‘throat-clearing’ type cough, and complaints of a tight feeling in the chest.

During very severe attacks, an asthma sufferer can turn blue from lack of oxygen and can experience chest pain or even loss of consciousness.

Just before loss of consciousness, there is a chance that the patient will feel numbness in the limbs and palms may start to sweat. The person’s feet may become cold.

Severe asthma attacks which are not responsive to standard treatments, called status asthmaticus, are life-threatening and may lead to respiratory arrest and death.

E.I.A.

Exercise-induced asthma, or E.I.A., is a medical condition characterized by shortness of breath induced by sustained aerobic exercise.

It shares many features with other types of asthma, and responds to some typical asthma medications, but does not appear to be caused by the same inflammatory reaction as the other types.

E.I.A. Treatment

As with any asthma, the best treatment is avoidance, when possible, of conditions predisposing to attacks. In athletes who wish to continue their sport, and/or do so at times in adverse conditions, preventive measures, including altered training techniques and medications, can be taken.

Some athletes take advantage of the refractory period by precipitating an attack by “warming up,” and then timing their competition such that it occurs during the refractory period.

Step-wise training works in a similar fashion. An athlete warms up in stages of increasing intensity, using the refractory period generated by each stage to get up to a full workload

Prognosis

As evidenced by the many professional athletes who have overcome E.I.A. using some combination of the above treatments, the prognosis is usually very good.

Olympic swimmers Tom Dolan, Amy Van Dyken, and Nancy Hogshead, Olympic track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee, baseball Hall of Famer Catfish Hunter, and American football player Jerome Bettis are among the many who have done so.

At the same time, it should be noted that according to International Olympic Committee statistics, during most of Olympic Games in last 20 years from 1/3 to 2/3 of athletes claimed to have asthma.

Some medical experts tie such inordinate rates of reported asthma with athletes’ desire to use complex medication to help them achieve better results.