Asthma with chest pain

Childhood chronic asthmatic bronchitis- thanks to a house of second hand smoke. Fine for 40 years and the suddenly- pain in both lungs going through to my back. Got Asthma diagnosis and meds. Breathing is better but I still get pains, especially in the top of my left lung. One half to one hydrocodone will knock it out for about 6 hours. Nothing else seems to help. So am I to choose between the pain and a life of hydrocodone? How bad is it to take small amount three times a day? I don't need it all the time, just about half the time. Right now I have major bronchitis and the coughing is killing me and both lungs hurt. I never smoked. This is not fair!!!

Hi there. What you are experiencing may be exhertional asthma. There are many things that can excererbate asthma, including allergic substances, cold air, and even excersize. Often times, doctors will prescribe a short acting beta agonist to use before you excersize. You may also benifit from a cromolyn inhaler. If you want, since your already going to the doctor, it may be worth bring up the topic of luekotrine modifiers, as you are taking a long acting beta agonist and a cortosteriod. They may be able to add some additional benifit, and you may even be able to eventually reduce the amount of other medications you need to take. Hope that helps.

I also sometimes have chest pain and shortness of breath from my asthma. Sometimes it's a dull pain and sometimes it's sharp. It gets worse with seasonal allergies, mold, and cold weather. I have to be very careful not to over-exert and to use my Flovent inhaler twice a day. And Albuterol if it gets bad, or before doing heavier exertion.

A cautionary tale about chest pain: this winter I had what I thought was asthma pain while exercising. It turned out to be a heart attack, and I ended up in intensive care for several days. Even having experienced both, I'm not sure I can differentiate between asthma pain and heart attack pain because they were so similar: shortness of breath, dull chest pain, feeling of constriction. And I'm female, so heart attack symptoms can manifest differently than for men. I was doing some high intensity activity at the time.

Amnicr, yes I was misdiagnosed with pleurisy exactly a year ago by my cardiologist. I suspected that this was a misdiagnosis when I went outside for about a half hour in cold weather and 15 minutes later had multiple stabbing pains in my chest. And I had had a persistent cough from a bout of bronchitis two months before.

I decided to try a pulmonary doctor, who did an X-ray, gave me breathing tests, and diagnosed asthma. This was a surprise to me because I never had asthma as a child, and I had no idea that chest pain was related to asthma -- I'd always thought that asthma meant gasping for breath after exertion.

Once I was prescribed an inhaler for daily use the cough disappeared within a week. The doctor also prescribed Singulair short-term to speed the healing process. As I mentioned in October, I also use an Albuterol inhaler before heavy exertion or if it's cold outside. Even with the inhalers and the Singulair it took at least a month for the chest pain to fully disappear and months to get my lung capacity back. A year later I still have to be careful in very cold weather or when I do intense aerobic exercise. I have about 85 percent lung capacity and will never regain it all, the pulmonary doc said. Probably had untreated asthma for too long.

Kimbr:

I was diagnosed with asthma around age 13. My first symptom brought me into the ER. I thought I was having a heart attack. For me, the onset of asthma has a first symptom of an extremely painful stabbing feeling. It feels like a knife, or large syringe, or lightning bolt stabbing between my ribs. The pain typically occurs near my heart on the left side, but has presented in many places around my ribs and lungs. Sometimes it goes away in a matter of seconds, other times the pain lasts for hours. It is worse upon breathing in or out fully. I tend to breathe shallow during an episode to limit my pain.

I have had testing of my heart too and they don't beleive it is related.

Though most doctors love to tell me that asthma does not cause pain, I think they need to do more research on the subject. They seem to treat it as a hard fact, but I know what I experience. The pain is first for me, followed by tightness and such if not treated by inhailer quickly enough.

I'm sorry you're experiencing this, but you're not alone. I beleive many of us experience pain in relation to asthma, but we keep getting written off.

Post Edited (Ima Medical Mishap) : 4/10/2015 11:33:42 AM (GMT-6)

Emphysema/COPD, afib and Lyme (why mention the little ones? For me, it was the Albuterol. I'be been taking Enclipse and Advair and one of those attacks last night. If feels like Edward Scissorhands has his nails in a circle around the top of my lungs. I've had this feeling 3 times in the past 6 months, just went back on medication then and what helped me was a heating pad. Now I'm afraid to take anything and it's Sunday and don't want to call doc as an emergency. So hopefully one day of skipping will not make matters worse. Horrible feeling above heart.. I too had thought I was having a heart attack.