perryj:
danielm:
Do you still take it?
Yep. I’ve only been taking it about 6 weeks. At this point I plan to take it indefinitely, perhaps cycling off for a couple months in the fall/winter to evaluate if I still need it. It made me a little sleepy initially (nothing even close to something like benedryl as an example), but I’ve since taken it during the day and didn’t even notice.
My doctor offered me to trial either another inhaled corticosteroid or montelukast. She said that historically montelukast was seen more as a second line medication after trying the steroids, but more recently, studies are showing it has fewer and less severe side effects than earlier studies showed (which didn’t seem bad/risky to me), so it’s becoming a more common first-line medication.
For those who don’t think they could have asthma, I agree with what other people have said - if you feel like you have excess mucus/sputum during exercise and/or allergy season, get checked out just for peace of mind. I’ve never had an ‘asthma attack’, have never felt like I struggled to breath, have never needed an inhaler due to respiratory emergency. I always thought the shortness of breath and mucus/coughing at high intensity was ‘normal’. I wouldn’t have called what I have asthma, but medicine apparently does. It wasn’t until this medication started working that I realized my struggling wasn’t normal. Yes, everyone struggles during vo2 work, but my breathing was significantly limiting - I’d run out of air long before my muscles would start burning and fading - and I didn’t even realize it because it was all I knew. Now: the higher intensity stuff still hurts, but it hurts everywhere more evenly and I don’t spend large portions of the workout coughing and gagging on my own lung butter.
I’ve had asthma all my life and I’m sure its worse than yours. What you are describing during training is what I go thru many times–that my lungs are the first limiter for me.
You may want to try Sudafed–in many instances that has helped me with my breathing, expecially during allergy season when the pollens trigger my asthma, but you should know it can give you dry mouth. I don’t know where you live, but you and I should try riding together because I know what you are going through and struggle with the same thing.
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