Severe asthmatic how can I exercise?

So I'm guessing your asthma is exercise-induced? I have severe asthma. but mine is environmentally-induced, and not triggered by exercise.

What I would suggest first is seeing a doctor, and possibly getting on some controller medications that could prevent attacks before they start. Then, try taking your quick-relief inhaler (or another medication) about 15 minutes before you start exercising.

And RELAX. One of the main causes of attacks continuing is stress, and panic. Something that really helped me with my attacks was learning to relax, and not panic during an attack. I've actually managed to get through several attacks in situations when I couldn't get to a quick-relief inhaler (once was overnight), just by relaxing my mind and body, and not allowing myself to stress.

Definitely check with your doctor, but I have had luck taking the albuterol before exercising and started my exercise journey (almost 100 lbs ago) just by walking. Even small movement helps.

Another vote for asking your Dr. Perhaps strength training would be better for you than cardio. You CAN control your diet, though. Until you get info from your Dr., stick around here and put your level at sedentary and track what you eat. I know plenty of people who haven't exercised and still lost weight by cutting calories and cleaning up their diets.

I don't know how bad your asthma affects your ability to exercise, but if it's of any help one of my best friends also has pretty bad asthma which affects him quite often and yet he puts me to shame in terms of exercising. Obviously I can't just say straight up it's a case of managing your asthma because I guess for a lot of people it's the asthma that manages you, but I mean if you have an idea as to your limits I would suggest working towards furthering them - if that makes sense.

If you don't have access to a gym or anything, then maybe start off with doing long walks - they don't sound compelling, but honestly they do you good. I used to play rugby for my school team as well as a side outside of school so the training used to be intense and 5 days of the week I was doing regular cardio. That was 2 years ago, and now since then my exercise level is virtually non-existent in comparison, but when the weather's good I tend to go for a walk for about 2 or 3 hours, often to a beach or in the country side where the terrain's a bit more difficult than roads. I'm quite lucky in that respect because I live in the countryside and there are beaches nearby, but just going out and walking for a good 2 or 3 hours does knacker me out, which in the past it never would have.

Maybe you could start off just setting yourself a goal of walking x amount of hours a week, see how it goes and if you feel like you can push it further then increase your time spent walking or look to start jogging? I know it's all very well saying go walking for x amount of hours a week and not everyone has the time in their week to do so, but it comes to the old thing of if you haven't got time you have to make it. I don't know, I hope this kind of helps you haha. Good luck!

Doctors can be useless with these things, I was having wheezing problems (though not full blown attacks) when I exercised - My GP decided I was young & otherwise healthy, so it must be asthma. When all inhalers & tests suggested it wasn't athsma, the docs pretty much went 'oh well'... You'd think they'd be doing all they could to get everyone exercising more, but sometimes think it's easier for them to say "it's just not for you"

If you're tracking your eating well and losing due to that, I wouldn't worry about putting weight ON via strength training. It'll change your shape, but unless you're eating plenty, you're not going to gain pounds of muscle mass, so shouldn't give nasty scale readings.

I'd still press with the doctors about controlling it better for some cardio though, because I'm pretty certain aerobic exercise can actually improve asthma symptoms, as lung function gets better. Good luck

Had asthma my whole life.....................you dont need to exercise to lose weight. Just stay in your calories and you will lose weight. As you lose weight your asthma will improve. Then worry about it, also fyi, swimming is notoriously bad for asthmatics due to the chlorination in the pool area.

My husband has the allergy induced kind of asthma, and he says that running actually HELPS it. Of course, the first few times he tried to run he needed his inhaler, but after awhile he could go farther and farther without it, and he barely even uses it at all now. I think he only uses his Advair when he's been around a cat or dog (which he's allergic to.)

I don't know as much about exercise induced asthma, but I say do what you can, when you can do it. Are your allergies mostly indoor or outdoor? Choose your location to exercise based on the environment. My hubs is allergic to indoor stuff, so he goes outside to run whenever the weather is permitting. If you are allergic to outdoor stuff, like pollen, stay inside in the air conditioning with a HEPA filter running and do some DVDs or something.

Start small with exercise too. 5 or 10 minutes of moving around is better than staying on the couch, and definitely better than over exerting yourself. Don't feel bad if you are tired after only a few minutes. Just do what you can and be proud that you did something. I don't have asthma, but I was not ashamed to just go for a walk around the block and refer to it as a workout when I wasn't in shape yet. Your abilities will grow as long as you stick with it.

Also, watch your food intake. Try not to go over on calories if you are not able to burn very many off with exercise.

If your doctor isn't giving you much good advice, see if you can find other asthmatics to be friends with on here, or maybe find a Asthma message board somewhere in the world wide web. You might be amazed at how much more information other patients will have that your doctor wouldn't even think of.

I have the same problem i have asthma an copd i want to exercise but don't know what kind i can do!!!

Thank you for the advice, I suppose I should have elaborated on the details of my asthma more. I do see a doctor for my asthma, but he says he doesn't know what exercises I could do. I am on Advair twice a day plus I have albuterol and I take an nasal steroid. My asthma is allergy induced and exercise induced so I have a double whammy there. At any rate, I am starting to watch my calories, but I really wanted to get my energy level up and maybe have more luck with shedding some pounds. I will see if I can find a place to start walking and I will look into the strength training, but I was told that strength training can cause you to gain more pounds because you are building the muscle? I don't want to get discouraged if I start seeing my weight go back up when I need to be loosing weight. Thank you again to all those who replied I do appreciate it especially since the information you have given me has been much more than my doctor could give me.

I would absolutely do strength training if you can. It'll give your metabolism a kick start and you'll start toning your body. A pound of muscle is a hell of a lot healthier than a pound of fat. I wouldn't worry about what the scales say. Just get healthy. Move your body anyway that works for you, eat healthy, and work on your strength training. There are some great on-line videos for how to do strength training with little to no equipment at home.

I will see if I can find a place to start walking and I will look into the strength training, but I was told that strength training can cause you to gain more pounds because you are building the muscle? I don't want to get discouraged if I start seeing my weight go back up when I need to be loosing weight.

That's true, but if I remember it depends on how you go about your strength training. If you do heavy weights in low reps then you'll build muscle which will lead to definite weight gain, but if you do light weights in high reps then that will serve to tone the areas your working as opposed to building on the muscle that's there already.

I also have bad asthma, although mine seems to have gotten better with exercise. I'm on Advair 250/50 right now which helps. I think that you should really ask your doctor. It doesn't sound like a gym membership has much to do with it, since you couldn't do cardio there. Why not try free weights at home and see if that's too much for you?