Strategies To Cope With Fitness Exercise For Asthma Sufferers

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Asthma is a medical condition characterized by shortness of breath induced by sustained aerobic exercise.  It shares many features with other types of asthma, and responds to some typical asthma medications, but does not appear to be caused by the same inflammatory reaction as the other types of asthma. 

As with any asthma, the best treatment is avoidance, when possible, of conditions predisposing to attacks.  In athletes who wish to continue their sport, and/or do so at times in adverse conditions, preventative measures, including altered training techniques and medications, can be taken.

Some athletes take advantage of the refractory period by precipitating an attack by "warming up" and then timing their competition such that it occurs during the refractory period.  Step wise training works in a similar fashion.  An athlete warms up in stages of increasing intensity, using the refractory period generated by each stage to get up to a full workload.

The most common medication approach is to use a beta agonist about twenty minutes before exercise.  Some physicians prescribe inhaled anti-inflammatory mists such as corticosteroids or leukotriene inhibitors, and mast cell stabilizers have also proven to be effective.  The warm-up period can be used in an attempt to ensure that competition would occur during this refractory phase.

The mechanism is unknown but is believed to involve the following possibilities: depletion of mast cell mediators, release of endogenous catecholamine, and release of endogenous protective prostaglandins.

Physical examination is often unremarkable in the clinical setting and a higher yield is obtained after an exercise challenge.  An exercise challenge, for the purpose of a physical examination, may be informal.  You may have the athlete come to the office wearing athletic clothing so that they can run on a treadmill or around the parking lot for 10 minutes followed by a repeat pulmonary examination.

Poorly controlled asthma results in increased symptoms with exercise.  Maximizing control of the baseline asthma, when present, is critical in the treatment of Asthma.

Poorly controlled allergic rhinitis also results in increased symptoms with exercise.  Secretions of hay fever can aggravate both allergic asthma and Asthma.  Viral, bacterial, and other forms of upper respiratory infections also aggravate the symptoms of Asthma.  Controlling secretions of these illnesses, as with allergic rhinitis, can make the asthma symptoms much more tolerable.