Tips for RUNNING with ASTHMA! Help!

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kwseneca
kwseneca Posts: 79
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm 21 years old. I was born with asthma and bad allergies (hay fever, etc). I really want to start jogging, but I feel like I cannot really get into running because it is not only hard- it is dangerous for me. I really want to push myself, but everytime my heart rate goes up, my asthma gets worse. My throat & brochi contract and get so tight, my muscles ache, and I just need to stop. My mom says when I was a kid, my asthma was the most controlled when I was really active in middle school with sports (volleyball and basketball). Please give me any tips! I hate using inhalers and albuterol unless I HAVE TO because it really has some bad side-effects like elevated heart rate (which put me in the hospital a month ago).
Any advice or support would help!

-Kay

Replies

  • mkatetay
    mkatetay Posts: 18
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    I have asthma also and have been running since I was a freshman in High school I ran Track and Cross Country and ran in college make sure you use your inhaler before you start running it helps me a lot and after if you need to and I would tell your Dr that you are wanting to start running and see if he will give you anything else for this and what he has to say before you begin..
  • Erikalynne18
    Erikalynne18 Posts: 558 Member
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    I live in Atlantic Canada and it's FREEZING outside right now so running outside is not an option with ashma. You could try the treadmill at a local gym perhaps? That way you can adjust your speed if you feel it's hard to breath. Also being at the gym there will be other people around in case you have an attack :)

    Personally I can't run (probably cause of the ashma lol), I've tried the treadmill but I get motion sickness from it. So my solution for cardio is usually the elliptical, rowing machine and walking. There's also the stepper, hula hooping, skipping.... lots of choices :)
  • mkatetay
    mkatetay Posts: 18
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    Also do you go to a GOOD asthma Dr that with get you a steroid inhaler I have to use mine 2 times a day and this makes the difference from running or not running also a lot of these Dr's do a lot in allergies and they can help you with that also... mine was a live saver :)
  • dixiewhiskey
    dixiewhiskey Posts: 3,333 Member
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    I also have asthma and a smoker (I know bad bad) but I recommend if you don't already have a steroid inhaler and regular inhaler to get one. My asthma is not bad so I actually don't have either these but I would HIGHLY recommend that you start slow.. start by doing workouts that increase your endurance (I found 30DS helped me actually jog more than 5 minutes) then jog, in a few weeks you can probably start running. Btw, if its cold where you are, go run on a treadmill, in your house or at the gym cause it's hard to breath in the Wintertime for most folks with asthma.

    Check out C25K program btw, you can google that but I reviewed that program a few months ago and it looks really good (and it's also highly recommended by many people on MFP for helping them start running).
  • SafioraLinnea
    SafioraLinnea Posts: 628 Member
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    This is my experience *your results may vary*.

    I had exercise-induced asthma as a child/teenager. Any movement beyond my typical walking pace had me giving up or requiring medication. For a few years as a teen I spent 4-5 nights a month in the ER of my local hospital having asthma attacks. It has been about seven or eight years since my last ER visit for anything asthma related.

    Last spring, I decided I was going to learn how to run. Walking has never been a problem for me, but I've never, ever been able to move more than moderate walk without getting winded and giving up or using my rescue inhaler. This time was going to be different. I'm a book nerd, so I read a ton about it, perused the Couch to 5km program along with a few others, and decided to personalize several of them to suit my purposes.

    I started off extremely slowly, after getting the go ahead from my physician.

    For the first two weeks, I would alternate walking 100 steps, jogging for 10 steps, with a goal of reaching my destination rather than jogging for xyz amount of time/distance. I'm not going to lie, it was really hard. I was extremely out of shape for anything except walking. At first I assumed I was going to need my rescue inhaler all the time, but I worked on positive self-talk to calm myself, and I didn't use the medication.

    In the beginning, my number one priority was not putting my body in a place where I needed the rescue inhaler in order to continue. Progress was extremely slow but I didn't give up, and i never used the inhaler. After about 2.5 months I was at a point where I was jogging about as much as I was walking no matter how far I decided to go, but I couldn't seem to break past that even balance.

    My breakthrough came when someone suggested that I need to prioritize learning how to breathe when I run. That was a wild concept for me: how on earth was I supposed to learn how to breathe?! I always thought that I'm alive and I move, and when my body needs air, my body breathes -- end of story. But, as a stubborn individual, I decided to test the theory. I basically had to retrain myself when I'm running to breathe deeply, and breathe at the same rate I did when I walked.

    And suddenly I wasn't taking walking breaks anymore when I went jogging. I'd jog for 20-30 minutes straight, concentrating not on how fast I'm going or how far I'm going, but on keeping my breathing calm, relaxed, and even. I would reach my destination, stop to calculate how many times I'd walked and realize I'd never walked (except for my warm up). It felt amazing.

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