I just found out that I have exercise induced asthma. I went to the doctor because running has been an impossibility all of my life - even though I can handle cardio machines and weight training fine. I am glad to find out that my heart is very healthy and lung capacity is 125% of expected. Now I am going to take up running (in moderation of course) and conquer a life long limitation. Anyone else out there with this condition?
lifting, sex columns, and EIA…what else do we have in common??? grin i was diagnosed in high school, after i about died after a cross country race. i usually only have trouble in hot weather…hot and muggy is just plain deadly, so there’s only one aerobic activity i do then! snicker i have a relatively low dose inhalier for when i have problems. now that you know what the problem is you can at least address it. your doc should be able to help you out.
I have had Asthma for almost all my life i developed it when i was very young it sort of went away when i was about 11 or 12 it went away, meaning i no longer needed medication. Then after i got bronchitis about a year and a half ago and in the hospital for a week i was back on medication and have been since.
Ironbabe, not that I’m an expert but I deal with asthmatics on a daily bases being a Respiratory therapist. Your lung capacity of 125% is due to the fact that asthma is an obstructive lung diease which means you can get the air in but it is hard to exhale, so you are trapping air within your lungs. While exercising try what is called pursed lip breathing(hold mouth open like you are tring to whistle) this will keep the airways open and allow you to expell more air when you exhale. Also try to avoid the cold weather that tends to cause bronchspasm, but if you must exercise in the cold try putting something over your mouth. Sounds logical but most asthmatic are unaware this. Also you can talk to your Dr. and maybe they will prescribe and inhaler for you to use prior to exercise. Hope this helped. I however do not have exercise induced asthma but instead mine is allergy related so I try to avoid the cause.
You ladies might want to look into a asthma
management technique know as the “buteyko”
breathing method. I don’t have asthma so I
can’t vouch for its efficacy. But I have a
friend who had pretty bad asthma and he swears
it “cured” him. You can find some good links
on buteyko via google:
buteyko - Google Search
OK, Michelle’s response “lifting, sex, and
EIA…what else do we have in common???
grin” raises a question. So do you two
have hot lesbo sex or what? 
A tall red
head and a short brunette … makes for some
nice imagery. grin
There is a wonderful drug (effective with no side effects) called cromyln which when inhaled before exercise prevents asthma attacks. It can be used to prevent attacks in general, but is supposed to be particularly good for preventing EIA.
you know, for ONCE i was not trying to ‘start’ anything laugh and i didn’t say ‘sex’ silly! i was referring to the ‘gang’ column… do you only have one thing on your mind? (ok, so do most of us snicker) sorry, i like men, and ironbabe preferes her husband last time i heard!!! grin
I have had exercise induced asthma my whole life. I have only found one cure. My diet. As soon as I put myself on a diet of 20 gr of carbs a day my asthma went away. If I then keep myself on a reasonable amount of carbs I do fine. Like I have been doing the NHE diet and it is working great for my physique goals as well as getting rid of my asthma. I was also blessed with severe hayfever and allergies. My asthma/allergies has never interfered with my goals. In high school I ran, boxed, wrestled, football, basketball and every other organised sport there was available to me. Once in a while my performance suffered but very rarely. Good luck there are definitely worse things. Also try learning self-hypnosis, and mind over body control it saved my life a couple times. Try learning breathing excercises by DR. Andrew Weil. Good luck let me know if I can help.
OH yeah one other thing. Asthma medications have a severe backlash. Meaning you will feel better for a while then it will kick your ass like you stole something. I advise if you can more homeopathic remedies. Ie vitamines /anti-oxitants are more important than anything to an asthmatic and play with your diet till you find what works for you. Took me 30 years to get it right. That lung capacity is correct mine is unbelievable I should be able to say under water for weeks if it actually meant better capacity however it is trapped air. All I have is albuterol as a PRN med. Meaning only when I am wheezing like a 90 year old man at a porn convention.
The doc prescribed me Albuterol for my bronchospams. Mine is worse in cold weather. I don’t have these spasms unless I run, nothing else causes them - for that reason I have avoided running all my life. I plan on starting running next week and it will be during cool mornings, so we’ll see how well the inhaler works.
As for the kinky lesbo sex - didn’t I already answer that question in a Gang article???
Michelle - I’m glad to know you have this condition too, I may pop you an e-mail now and then when I have questions. I’m new to this thing. 
If I remember correctly, there was an article on fats in one of the print Testosterone issues that discussed asthma and its reduction by omega-3 fat. If I remember correctly, the roundtable contributor is one of Berardi’s colleagues who stopped bicycle race when he went to college because high air pollution levels induced asthama attacks. When he began consuming more omega-3 fats as opposed to omega-6, his asthma stopped. Apparently omega-6 oils have inflammatory properties so reducing their presence in the cell membrane reduces the body’s overall inflammatory response. That would seem to make some sense given inflammation’s role in cardiovascular disease and how even thin North Americans have high rates of heart disease relative to even heavier people in other cultures. (Why, for example, do the Japanese smoke more than North Americans while having lower cardivasular disease rates? How can eskimos eat blubber and not have cardiovascular disease? Genetics? Diet?) Corn is super high in omega-6, which is then fed to our cattle and therefore is a huge component of our dietary fat. Grass, on the other hand, is high in omega-3. So eating fish oil and flax seed oil to raise omega-3 in the cell membranes is one of the article’s recommendations.
I’ll see if I can dig up the article and any other interesting details if anyone is interested. The article was a round table discussion, if I recall, so maybe that would turn up something in a search, but I think this article was a print exclusive.