So on Thursday I was diagnosed with Exercise Induced Asthma (EIC). I've had this for years but it never occurred to me that it was asthma.
~ I got a lot of phlegm build up with heavy exertion (including running more that 1 mile)
~ Doing really heavy exertion (pushing a car for the woman that ran out of gas, sprinting to my car when I'm really late) will always make me cough for 10-15 minutes, longer if it's cold outside
~ Pushing myself on the treadmill (6.5 mph instead of 5.5) makes my throat close up and I have to back off.
The first two I thought were normal if it was cold and if maybe I just wasn't drinking enough water. But no matter how much water I had beforehand it never actually changed. The last one I thought was what was normal if I was trying to do more cardio wise than I was ready for (figuring I was in terrible shape). Turns out that while I should have been breathing harder I shouldn't have felt my throat getting tight. I finally googled "exercise causes coughing" and found several links suggesting asthma, which the doc confirmed.
So I am now the owner of a shiny new inhaler. Doc said use it 15 minutes before I exercise and I should be good to go. If it doesn't work, come back in a month and we'll see if there's more we need to do. So yesterday I tried it out with the elliptical. Previously I did 55-60 rotations/minute and yesterday I was doing 70 like it was cake. It's amazing what breathing can do for a difference.
Unfortunately Sunday was supposed to be my 5K but since I haven't had a run without issues yet and because it's colder suddenly, which seems to set me off, I'm waiting. I will be trying my inhaler with my 1 mile runs this week and see what changes. If that's ok, I'll try a 3-miler next weekend. I just felt that realistically I hadn't had the time since Thursday to get used to how this is going to change things and I want to be ready. There's usually a Turkey Trot 5K at Thanksgiving so that's probably an ok time for me to jump in. I'm kinda bummed but I think I made the right choice this way.
I used to have asthma as a kid, and I remember in 5th grade even being excused from the 600 yard run!
ReplyDeleteNow, I'm proud to be able to say that I've run four full marathons. I owe it some to outgrowing it and moving away from some of the sources of my allergies, but more to the Jeff Galloway "run-walk" method. (See http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/walk_breaks.html .) With that, you no longer have to run even a mile; you run maybe 2 to 3 minutes and then walk a minute. This really is much better for your body, and I've read where others with EIA have benefited from it (for instance, http://www.examiner.com/article/running-guru-jeff-galloway-s-website ).