What do you mean you can't breath??

Asthma Diagnosis

Ever since I can remember, I have always struggled with my breathing, never able to take a full breath.  The winter I was 8 or 9 years old, I became sick with a cold.  This cold turned out to be different.  My mom noticed that I was having trouble breathing, to the point that I was wheezing.  We went to the emergency room, where the doctor decided to give me a breathing treatment.  Now, for those of you fortunate enough to not have done a breathing treatment before, count yourselves lucky.  A breathing treatment involves using a nebulizer machine that changes the liquid medication into a mist so that it can be easily inhaled into the lungs.  The nebulizer looks like this:

There are two ways to have the patient inhale the misted medicine:
1. a t-piece

2. a mask

For whatever reason, the ER doctor decided to administer the nebulizer treatment to me using the mask.  Now imagine that you're 8 or 9 years old, you can't breath, you're scared.....and this futuristic looking mask is handed to you that has smoke coming out of it.  Needless to say, I freaked out.  My mom finally calmed me down enough for the doctor to put the mask on me.  I did feel better after doing the breathing treatment.

Turns out that I had ASTHMA.  What is asthma?  Here is a picture that explains it best:

Living With Asthma

Triggers

As I mentioned above, I don't know what it's like to take a full breath of air.  While I don't always feel that my asthma effects me, cold weather and exercise are my triggers.  I dread the winter season, because I know that being outside and breathing the cold air could trigger my asthma and make it more difficult to breath.  Anytime I catch a cold, it goes straight to my lungs; I have learned to use my albuterol (rescue) inhaler as soon as I feel ANY tightness in my chest, whether I feel symptoms of a cold or not.  I also use my albuterol inhaler before each exercise session, whether I'll be running or doing some other form of cardio.

Lung Capacity

I never knew how bad my lungs were, until I started going to an allergist.  My allergist (who is AWESOME and very knowledgeable) is also an asthma expert, so during my first visit he had my lung capacity measured.  I had to blow as hard as I could into a T-piece, similar to what is used during a nebulizer treatment.  This was connected to a computer, which records the amount (volume) and speed (flow) of air that I inhale and exhale.  This is called a spirometry test:

During that first test, we found out that my lungs were working at 60% capacity; normal capacity is 80% and above.  Because of this, my allergist put me a daily steroid inhaler, hoping that it would increase my lung capacity.  In subsequent visits over the past 2.5 years, my lung capacity HAS increased to 80-something percent, so we tried decreasing the dosage of my daily steroid inhaler.  Because of the cold, wet winter that we've had this year, my lung capacity has decreased to 79%; while that is still good [higher than what I had started at when I first started going to my allergist], it is below the 80% that my allergist wants me to be at.  As of March 21st, my daily inhaler has been changed from a steroid to a combination steriod/bronchial dilator.  We will see at my follow up appointment at the end of May if this new medicine is working as it should, increasing my lung capacity.  My albuterol inhaler was also switched to one that works my whole lung, not just the top part.

One of the things I love about my allergist, besides his true knowledge about allergies and asthma, is that he wants to eventually get my lung capacity high enough to be able to wean me off of all asthma medicine.  I can hardly wait for the day when I can breath as well as the majority of the population!!