Respiratory trainer experiences?

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AtLeastOnceMore
AtLeastOnceMore Posts: 304 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi guys,

I'm 7 months into this journey, but have had a pretty major setback in the last 2 months after developing what seemed to be a cold in mid-June. Yesterday (TWO MONTHS LATER :grumble:), I got back pathology results confirming that the reason why I'm still struggling is that I was hit by the unlikely double-whammy of whooping cough and swine flu at the same time.

This has had multiple side effects (including gaining 6kg back due to inactivity :sad: ) but, most notably, my lung capacity has reduced to nearly nil. Walking up a single flight of stairs has me gasping for air, where I was comfortably walking 5km before I got ill. My doctor has suggested respiratory therapy, including a respiratory trainer like a PowerBreathe. I'm looking for anyone with any experience using these, particularly if you have asthma or other respiratory illnesses. I'd love to hear about your experience with them!

Thanks!

Coolchick207

Replies

  • AtLeastOnceMore
    AtLeastOnceMore Posts: 304 Member
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    No one with any experiences at all?
  • geneva042
    geneva042 Posts: 51
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    I have severe asthma
    when I was at my worse, only thing that seemed to work for me was swimming in a saltwater pool. Now I can swim in normal pools, as long as I take my inhaler.

    Now as for the respiratory therapy, I had that recommended after I had surgery (since it really f***ed my lungs) it took a while but I could see slow and steady results.

    That being said, I'm in no way back in top lung health, I still struggle, but as long as I do my exercise every day and take my inhaler it isn't too bad.

    All I can say is that don't give up, it will get better (since it was just an infection (albeit a bad one!)
  • AtLeastOnceMore
    AtLeastOnceMore Posts: 304 Member
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    Thanks heaps for the response! Hoping your lungs (and mine!) get to the optimum they are capable of soon x
  • geneva042
    geneva042 Posts: 51
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    they will, it just takes time.

    What was the worse for me was around 10 years ago I had a severe pneumonia (both lungs) that I didn't see a doctor for a while (read 2 months, stupidest moment of my life right here), after that I ended up in a hospital for another month, with a lung abscess the size of a softball (we can still see the scar on X-rays, it's hilarious every time I go for a lung x-ray to see the faces of the docs all ''what the hell is that?' and had a reaction to the meds they IVed in me. So I was in pretty rough shape.

    After that they DXed Asthma, now we'll never know if its followed the whole episode, or if I was asthmatic before (I was in very good shape so never felt out of breath or at least I didin't notice) Since then I'm always sick with my lungs, my colds and flus last longer and are more intense.

    So if you have help and support for therapy, take it, I haven't had the chance to have respiratory therapy after that, only after my son was born 2.5 years ago, and it helped.

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