Can I prevent my asthma?

Well I am new to this forum. Let me tell you my story. I am currently a 21 year old male attending college. I have had asthma since early elementary school. It was both allergen induced and exercise induced. The symptoms of my asthma became worse as I aged and by high school I could not run for more than 10 minutes without getting asthma. Since I had asthma I have taken a majority of the medicines on the market including prednisone (when I am severely sick) as well as pill-based medications (like singular). I have always taken an albuterol inhaler regularly.

Towards the end of high school and beginning of college I was prescribed Advair (a steroid/bronchiodilater) to be used along with albuterol. This helped to prevent asthma from common allergens but I still could not endure any strenuous physical activity.

I tried to consult my physician regularly about the problem and he kept track of my progress but his only solution was to increase my dosage of advair and the frequency of use to twice a day along with using albuterol whenever necessary. This still did not prevent my exercise induced-asthma from occurring rather readily. All it takes is for my pulse-rate to remain elevated for more than just 3-5 minutes for the asthma to begin and then my breathing progressively tightens up. I eventually just gave up trying to solve the problem because it seemed my family and doctor were fine with me just not getting asthma out of the blue.

I could not play sports or do regular physical activities that all my friends took part in and I still cannot. I have always enjoyed playing basketball, dancing, and even running but I just cant do these things in fear that I may just kill myself if I push just a little too hard. If I do take albuterol after I get asthma it eventually goes away, although even if I do not take albuterol it goes away on its own if I cease the activity. However regardless of if I take medication to treat an occuring instance of asthma or not, it will start up again if I continue whatever activity triggered it.

As a result of this I am probably not the healthiest person in the world due to lack of regular cardiovascular exercise. I do walk a lot and people tell me "take small steps and do low intensity exercise, the best cure for asthma is exercise." The only problem is that low intensity exercise bores me, it is not a challenge, and at my age I want to do more. Yet once I go past that point of "this is easy" to "this is a good workout", my breath shortens and shortens until I have no choice but to stop in fear that it might shorten to a point that I will not be able to breathe. The reason I am posting this NOW is because I want to try and tackle this problem. I look at myself and I feel like I am missing out and could do so much more in my youth if I didn't have this impending doom feeling whenever I happen to say, chase a frisbee down a field or run to get somewhere faster. Yet I have no preventative measures to take other than these medications. I hope someone can help. I would greatly appreciate any input, Thanks!

-jammist

Wow Jammist and hello, I have had asthma all my life too and just wanna say get hooked up with an allergy asthma clinic. There are new medications out there and advair does not work for everyone, it does not work for me. Allergy/asthma doctors don't have to tests you for allergies if you don't want them too hun. My allergy/asthma doctor has me on the lastest and best medications for me. Ask your doctor about Singulair, Asmanex and Xopenex inhaler which is way better than the albuterol inhaler for your rescue medication. I see my asthma doctor every three months too, I like my current allergy asthma doctor but I have had one that just made me feel bad. Post here anytime hun, We all have are good and bad days. I also note this is just advise and my 2 cents and I hope it helps. try to get referrals from friends or anyone for a good allergy asthma doctor, If your in the Houston, Texas area I can recommend a few. A good doctor should listen to you and prescibe medications that'll help and GP's (General Practioners) are not always up to date on the newer medications for asthma. Well Take Care and Keep us posted I hope you'll start to feel better soon and soft hugz to you

Thanks for the replies! I am not sure what you're saying stkitt other than have a positive outlook on life. And I agree that is important and I try my best to appreciate what I have as opposed to what I lack. But then again, life is also about improving yourself and if there is a possibility I can overcome this I think its worth trying to pursue. But I appreciate your words of wisdom :D .

I guess I will ask my physician about Xopenex. I am not sure what an allergy/asthma specialist is but i'll look into that. I saw an allergy specialist from elementary school to late middle school and used to take allergy shots. I stopped seeing him when it got to a point that I was taking over 6 allergy shots a week and my allergies were not improving.

I have tried singuliar and it didn't work...my physician suggested trying singulair + advair + albuterol which I never stuck with. I feel like advair may be overrated by my doctor, i think for me all it does is raise the bar at which I will get asthma but does not actually prevent it. As a sidenote I have been dealing with asthma all my life and have a nebulizer. While dislike this fear of doing physical activity, I haven't had an actual asthma attack since early high school so I guess it serves its purpose.

I appreciate your replies and thanks for your advice!

That was some really helpful info mongatu! I will definitly ask my physician about those medications you mentioned. I hopefully can get this resolved...atleast somewhat in the next few months.

Its nice to know other people have exercise induced asthma like me. In the summer I plan to learn karate from one of my friends who knows a good amount of martial arts. I tried to work out with him a couple of months ago and I could barely make it through 20 minutes of training because of my asthma (and all I was doing was kicking and striking a punching bag sorta fast). Anyway thanks for the info everyone! I'll let ya know what happens!

Jammist,

I think any asthma patient does better being treated by an allergist or a pulomonologist.  An allergist, particularly, sees this type of thing every day. The pulmonary guys see asthma patients along with people dealing with COPD, emphysema and other lung problems.  If I were you, I would get an appointment with an allergist.  I'm not trying to be hard on you here, but if you do see one and they set up a plan for you, you have to follow it.  You can't just take care of your lungs on a part time basis, it's a 24-7 job.  I think you mentioned in one of your post something about not sticking to a plan that one doctor gave you.  I'm just being firm with you because I want you to get better.

I wish you the best!

Carla