UKC

On colder days in particular and when I am trying hard (eg during Saturday morning parkruns) I find I get real problems with breathing. I can feel my windpipe constricting and it doesn't help my speed.

Any suggestions for dealing with this? I also seem to produce a huge amount of mucus from my nose so tend to breathe through the mouth, but I realise this doesn't warm the air so much to the throat and lungs.

In reply to toasted:

My daughter gets this and just has a blast from an inhaler before starting, seems to do the trick

In reply to Hat Dude:

Thanks, a visit to the doc could be in order. Do they give out asthma inhalers easily?

In reply to toasted:
I get this but only if I'm not warmed up properly and if I slightly over do it. The first hill rep on a cold night can end the session. It's horrible to experience.

I went to the Dr's but it looked a complex process to get tested for an inhaler and I seem to be better if I slowly warm up and build into the session, since then it's been OK, but I have had it back again if I do something inside my VO2 max pace, so 1km flat out at 5min miling on a cold night and my throat closes.

Re handing out, no most won't. They are PED's (sometypes anyway) so technically you are cheating without being certified as an asthmatic.. You're Just another Gatlin...

In reply to toasted:

I was recently diagnosed after a persistent cough. I managed to go under 40mins for 10k within 3 weeks of getting an inhaler. I'd been trying for years with 40:04 my best and then 38:55, bang.

Your Dr should do a fairly simple test to diagnose and then it takes a while to get a preventative inhaler dose right. Not all breathing difficulties are asthma though. Do you cough after a hard session? That was the key indicator for my doctor.

Mucus isn't an asthma thing.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

I looked into the cheating thing and apparently it's fine. They don't expand the windpipe to beyond it's natural limit so anyone without asthma gets no benefit. Up to a limit, but the limit is really high. I believe it's come off the banned list completely now?

In reply to XXXX:

Has it? it changes all the time. Things go from OK to banned to watched.. it's hard to keep up.

It's not meant to provide benefits for non-asthmatics anyway as you say but I know people question that as so many runners seem to be asthmatics, Paula Radcliffe was and if you head to Lets Run many are convinced she was a doper.. I don't think she was, I hope not anyway, she was just way better than anyone ever by killing herself in training.

but I know one of the GB 24 hr runners went through a lot of testing to be certified to compete in a world champs probably 5 years ago now though.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

I think it's because many asthmatics go undiagnosed and so for their entire formative years have to put up with a lot of pain and discomfort with their breathing when training. They have to work harder and therefore train harder. Once the asthma is controlled they find 5-10% more and are used to suffering.

I checked, salbutamol is allowed up to 1600mg which is about 16 doses a day. I take 2 before a run so you'd have to be really going for it.

In reply to toasted:

I think I may have this?

I have an inhaler from when I had a particularly nasty cold and my cough wouldn't go away and I was wheezing at night. I think it was called reactive bronchitis or something similar.

I occasionally use it when exercising and it seems to help.

In reply to XXXX:

Yeah a lot of them are like that, really high threshold levels. I once took pseudoephidrine (sudafed) before a world champs race to clear congestion, which was on the banned list. But when I checked the level required was almost unattainable in tablet form.

So runners/cyclists who say they took a sudafed and failed a test are normally lying...

Caffeine was similar but thats off and on the list too, not sure on its current status.

In reply to XXXX:

When I ease off the pace and at the end of the session the symptoms ease. No coughing after running either. It just feels like I could perform better if I wasn't having to try so hard to suck in some air!
I'm fairly fit too - best parkrun 5k is 21.43. Just want to be able to go faster!

In reply to toasted:

I've suspected I've had mild asthma for years. Asthma runs in my family (my Dad had it bad and my brother developed it as an adult) and I've always had a persistent cough. Very occassionally I'll get a bit wheezy after a cold weather very intense run (e.g. intervals).

I went to the doc and explained all this and she asked me a few more questions, but was not particularly concerned there was anything else going on, said the persistent cough could be either mild asthma or acid reflux. To see if it would help, she readily prescribed a preventative inhaler (salbutamol I think). I got the feeling if I'd gone back for more having said it worked, it would have been quite easy to get a repeat prescription.

Anyway, I used it for a while (couple of puffs before a run) and, perhaps it was all in my head, but it felt like it may have helped. The inhaler ran out some time ago and I haven't been back for more, mainly because it wasn't a dramatic improvement and I rarely experienced noticeable difficulties anyway. I did notice (when resting/lying in bed) I got some "palpitations" whilst I was taking it which was listed as a potential, but not worrying, side effect.

Summary: go see the doc and explain everything...including your suspicion it might be exercise induced asthma. Nothing to lose really.

In reply to mountainbagger:

Go and ask for a spirograph test.

They test lung function, give you an inhaler and you go back 15 minutes later and do the test again. My 'lung age' went from 55 to 41 in 15 minutes. I'm 32. It really is a clear indicator of whether or not you need an inhaler.

The fact I could run a 40:04 with a lung age of 55 has given me encouragement for the future! I'm still crap now but give it 20 years...

In reply to XXXX:


Ah, my doctor didn't mention that. I'll ask next time. Thanks for that!

In reply to mountainbagger:

I meant spirometry, obviously. A spirograph is one of those things you put a pen in and make nice patterns.

Don't ask the dr for one of them.

In reply to toasted:

I have it, but my symptoms were weezing whilst running and coughing for quite a while afterwards.

Doctor wrote me a prescription for a Salbutamol first visit, but had me visit a specialist asthma nurse a couple of times for tests.

In reply to toasted:

I've had some kind of coughing fit after nearly every cross country race this winter and the other night a weird raspy throaty noise when we were doing 400s. I really do need a decent excuse for being a crap runner.

In reply to XXXX:




I'm having one of those next week, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the results are. The doc was amazed at how low my peak flow was - 450, when he would have expected it to be around 600. Went to see him as I was suffering from the effects of a very hard bike ride (4 very steep hills in the NYM) on a cold day. Have been using an inhaler intermittently for the last month but not noticed any real difference.