Asthma diagnosed or misdiagnosed ???

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Aimvector

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Hi there.
Sorry for the long story, but i hope it helps...

Since my school days (around age 14) I have had issues with random dizziness and fainting. It would happen once a year or so, always when seated or standing in line. It would start by just feeling hot around the neck. Then I start to panic as I breathe deeper. No weezing or tight chest though. Then I would faint, get up and carry on as normal. Weird...

Every time this happened I was taken to the doctor, tested for sugar, blood pressure and all was fine. They usually blamed it on a skipped breakfast.

However, when I reached final school year (age 18), it got worse. I had the dizziness, but no fainting. I was permanently dizzy and would have random nights with a tight chest. Doctor gave me an asthma inhaler for the tight chest which helped after he sent me for a lung function test.
Gave me no prevention medication whatsoever, Only the inhaler which helped with my tight chest.
The lung specialist diagnosed me with asthma.

I was then tested for allergies after having a antihistamine about 40 hours before the test which I believe caused a mis-test. Reason why I wanted the test was because when I had the dizziness, I felt stomach tension and tension in the diaframe area. Like my stomach is pushing up into my lungs. I don't know if the tension was caused by stress from asthma, or if it was caused by a food allergy.
It came positive for wheat,gluten,soya, mold mix and dust mites. (Dont know if this was a mis-test)

I have been on antihistamine ever since, the dizziness dissapeared for a while, however I have had tight chests every now and again. Using the asthma pump whenever it happens.
I live an active lifestyle and never found an issue with cardio exercises.

At age 25 the dizziness came back with a bang. I went for allergy tests again, without having antihistamine in my system for a few months. The tests came out clear.

I wake up in the mornings extremely tired, no energy, my lungs feel heavy, not tight. Feels like I have done a 70km jog in my sleep. I thought I could have some form of apnea, waking up with low oxygen.

I went to see a Eear/Nose/Throat surgeon. He gave me special nasal spray as he could see my post nasal drip is a problem. He immediately sent me back to the lung specialist as he could see my lungs were not functioning correctly. I had a lung function test done. The specialist told me that I am on the system as I have done one before. He said it had improved, but my asthma is still not normal.
I asked him about a prevention plan or treatment plan for asthma. He gave me "Inflammide" inhaler which I take every day (two puRAB per day).
According to him the medication would take 2 weeks to get Asthma under control.

About 4 months later, I am confuse. I don't have a tight chest anymore, but sometimes, especially after exercise (like a few hours or a day after), I feel tension in my lungs, tension that I cannot stop with a inhaler.
It makes me panic and stress, making the tension worse. I then get a slight weird feeling in the back of my neck. I feel like i need to support my head by lying down

To describe my breathing - If breathing in at deepest point is rated 10, and breathing out completely is rated 0 - I breathe in to 10 , then with the tension I breathe out to 4. As the tension gets worse I breathe in to 10 and out to 5, and then 6. Eventually I feel like I am taking such shallow breaths, holding my chest pushing down onto my stomach trying to control my breathing.
This tension comes and goes.

Is this tension normal in Asthma sufferers ? I have never had this before.
Is it because of my training and exercising, the medication I am on ? Or is something else causing the issue that I need to test for ?
Currently I am on no antihistamine and I am using the asthma prevention inhaler daily called Inflammide (company : Boehringer Ingelheim)

Please help.
Thank you in advance

Marcel
 
Generally, if you have a tight chest that gets better from the inhaler, that's a pretty good clue you have asthma. And it sounRAB like your Inflammide is helping at least somewhat.

However, it does not sound like your triggers have been identified very well. If it's allergic, you'd probably have other allergy symptoms sometimes, like sneezing or itching. Do you?

Believe it or not, symptoms a few hours or a day after exercise is quite common. Exercise can bring on spasms, but it also releases hormones that hold the lungs open. Then later, when you relax, your lungs start to tighten up.

Also, it sounRAB to me like you might also have some anxiety which may be making your breathing problems worse. The inhaler will NOT help with anxiety at all. You might possibly benefit from medical help for anxiety, also.

One thing that helped me after I was diagnosed with asthma was getting a little peak flow meter that I can check my breathing with when I start feeling symptoms. Most of the time, my nurabers are close to normal even if I feel somewhat uncomfortable. If the nurabers are getting low, then I take my inhaler and they get better. The meter has taught me to distinguish between nuisance level symptoms and potentially dangerous ones, and as a result I'm a lot calmer about my condition.
 
If you have a a rescue inhaler (such as albuterol), you might try using that about 15 minutes before any cardio and see if it helps.

It also appears that you are not in the US so I don't know if it's normal in your health system for doctors to give you an "asthma action plan." You can do a search here as Mountain Reader wrote an excellent post on this topic. You could take it to your pulmonary doc and ask what he thinks.
 
I have to disagree with JaneWhite on the allergy issue. I assumed I didn't have allergic asthma because I have no major allergy symptoms, but after having ha serious attacks at the same time of year twice, it seems pretty likely that I have allergies after all.

No sneezing, runny nose, etc, but I do tend to have mild skin problems like patchy dryness and persistent itchiness that can be associated with allergies, and I am somewhat prone to sinusitis following a cold.

To the OP: Do you practice yoga at all? I find that it is very helpful with learning how to breathe more deeply and steadily, and it can certainly enhance athletic performance in other areas.

I too, tend to not have asthma problems from cardio most of the time, but when I was first diagnosed it was very difficult to get my asthma under control. I could exercise fine, but I still had troubling symptoms pretty regularly. I ended up taking Singulair daily as well as Advair 500/50. I was able to back off and take fewer meRAB after a while, but it did take more than a standard dose of a controller inhaler for several months to get things under control. Perhaps the subtler symptoms you are experience now are an indication that you might need a different or additional medication, rather than a different approach entirely?
 
Hi All, Thanks for your replies,

JaneWhite -
That is correct, I feel the rescue inhaler helps if I have tight chest. I am 25 years old now, and I used to have tight conditions about 5 years ago.
But I used a rescue inhaler to get rid of the symptoms. This got worse and instead of having the symptoms like once a week,
I started getting them twice or three times a week. End of 2009, I had it almost every night.
Now, currently they are not so common any more. My guess is that the Inflammide inhaler must have been helping for this ?
I have only been on the Inflammide inhaler since Jan 2010 this year.

The spasmic lung symptoms are exactly what I now battle with. If I dont excercise, It feels under control. As soon as I do light training I get extremely
tired after 45 minutes. Not too much out of breath, but I can feel theres oxygen issues.
2 Hours later I get slight spams in my chest. I excecised 2 days ago and I still get the spams every now and again.
Also with the spams are a slight pain (not sore) / weird feeling in the back of my neck.

I dont suffer from sneezing or itching, but I do have a post nasal drip. Even after seeing a throat surgeon and getting a spray, it still is not
under good enough control. I wake in the mornings having to swallow every 15 seconRAB or so as it "drips" down the back of my throat.

Could a post nasal drip make this worse? Allergy tests came positive at age 18 for dustmites and moldmix.
Although allergy tests came clear recently this year, I made my entire room (bed,pillows,curtains-> which i changed to blinRAB) allergy free.
It helped a bit, but I probably need to see the ear\nose\throat specialist again to take my nasal drip further ? Anything more I could do about that ?

Titchou -
Thank you, The rescue inhaler helps a little with the tiredness and performance during the cardio, however the spasms are still the same.
It almost like I get some form of hyper tension in my lungs/chest with contracting/expanding muscles a few hours after training... Just thinking about it when I have slight tension
causes it to almost get worse as if anxiety kicks it off even more ?
I am from South Africa, I read forums where I found that people in the US use a treatment plan.
I mentioned this to my specialist and I was angry with my
general practitioner for giving me a rescue inhaler to use over the last 6 years, rather than something to help for asthma.
I am always one who will go back in circles to try prevent the problem rather than fighting symtoms. The spasms in the lungs and sleeping with it makes
me extremely tired in the mornings and most part of the day.

snowdrift -
I dont practise yoga at all no. I will look into it thank you. I have read and many people find it works for them.
Will see how it goes :)
 
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