Exercise-induced asthma

Asthma is a condition characterized by hyperactivity of your airways to some usual things. It can be provoked by many different situations or substances, including breathing cold air, tobacco smoke, breathing tests, physical activity, digestion problems, drinking soft drinks or wine (which usually contain sulphur dioxide). Different infections of airways lining and various drugs are also known as asthma causes, especially beta blockers (antihypertensive and heart medications), asthma inhalers and metacholine and histamine aerosols. Anyone can get an asthma attack if they breathe enough of these substances, but people suffering from asthma react even to tiny amounts of these things. However strange it may seem, asthma patients often complain that laughing or some emotional stress made them feel much worse.

Exercise is then just one of the potential causes of asthma attacks. It reveals this overreaction of airways and causes narrowing of the air passages, provoking an asthma attack.

What Exercise Can Cause Asthma

Almost any physical activity may cause asthmatic attack in people with this type of asthma. However, some physical activity is known to provoke asthma more often than other exercise. Doctors discovered that one of the best activities for people with exercise induced asthma is swimming. Running outdoors is not a favorable exercise and it could even worsen your asthma symptoms, but you can run on the treadmill or cycle indoors, instead. For some people, swimming indoors might also pose a problem, if they are sensitive to chlorine in the swimming pools.

The air during the physical activity also matters. You will feel better if the air is warm and moist, then if you start exercising in cold and dry weather.

Doctors determined that the duration of the exercise affects the severity of the attack. Asthma patients are usually able to exercise for 6 minutes until the first symptoms appear. Several hours later, same people might be able to engage this activity without any asthma symptoms and breathing problems. So, they concluded that gradual athletic training is very beneficial for asthma patients.

Should Asthma Patients Exercise

Definitively, people suffering from asthma can only benefit from physical activity. Earlier, doctors used to ban any form of exercise to children suffering from asthma. This is now an outdated treatment, and these children, and adults suffering from similar problems are encouraged to engage in different physical activities. The most commonly recommended are team sports, such as football or baseball where there is exercise followed by rest.

Good control of your asthma is very important, if you want to exercise properly. Your doctors might prescribe preventive treatment, or inhalers to relieve your symptoms, either beta 2 stimulants, such as salbutamol or terbutaline or some long-acting medications.