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Tag: asthma

Asthma Can Suck the Life Out of Winter Running. Treadmill to the Rescue!

Asthma Can Suck the Life Out of Winter Running. Treadmill to the Rescue!

Wintergreen Posted by Wintergreen on February 8, 2018

Running in cold weather with asthma can suck the wind out of your training, literally and figuratively. I’ve battled asthma since my early teens; some days, it is so cold that I step outside and instantly can’t breathe. For many years, my training would taper off significantly in the winter due to my asthma.

Asthma makes your airways extremely sensitive, and cold air is one of the triggers that can cause the airways to spasm. When that happens, your whole chest tightens up and you cough, wheeze, and gasp for air. I would try running in the cold with my face covered and only my eyes exposed, but breathing was still a challenge. I’d find myself stopping and coughing a lot. My inhaler didn’t help much, and the cold weather usually won. It’s hard to enjoy running when it takes so much energy just to breathe.

The first few years I was into running, I would just take the winter mostly off. I didn’t have easy access to a treadmill in those years, and the downtime didn’t bother me. However, I would run the same spring half marathon every year, and for a few years in a row, my finish time was almost exactly the same. The lack of progress started to get frustrating. I could see that to get faster, I would have to avoid such a long break in training.

Read more >>

Categories: Healthy Running
Tags: asthma, treadmill, winter running
It’s Not Asthma? Vocal Cord Dysfunction and Running

It’s Not Asthma? Vocal Cord Dysfunction and Running

Catnip Posted by Catnip on May 17, 2017

After quitting the track team in high school due to what she thought were asthma attacks, Laura Hurd started running again as an adult, but soon the attacks came back. Now a speech-language pathologist, she recognized that the symptoms she was experiencing way back when were not asthma but something else — vocal cord dysfunction.

Our vocal cords are designed to block our airways when we swallow to keep food and drink out from going down the wrong pipe and into our lungs. When operating normally, vocal cords only block our airways for that purpose. Paradoxical vocal cord dysfunction, also known as vocal cord or vocal fold dysfunction (we’ll call it VCD), occurs when the vocal cords close when breathing, and thus block the airway. It’s obviously a problem when breathing causes us not to be able to breathe!  Read more >>

Categories: Healthy Running
Tags: asthma, breathing, vocal chord disfunction
When Running’s a Wheeze: Chronic Bronchitis

When Running’s a Wheeze: Chronic Bronchitis

Cardamom Posted by Cardamom on February 18, 2016

imageAs I ran and breathed in the crisp cold air, an unwelcome and familiar grip squeezed my chest. In seconds, breathing became harder and more labored, forcing me to stop and try to reclaim my breath. Asthma, my dear enemy, was back, and I knew its companion bronchitis would potentially follow right on its heels.

Unlike acute bronchitis, the chronic version is a lifelong condition; I should know, as I’ve had it since I was a baby. It is not contagious and is not caused by bacteria or a virus. It does, however, damage the lungs by permanently scarring them. My lungs are in such poor shape that doctors who don’t know me accuse me of lying when I tell them that I was never a smoker.

The battle usually begins with an environmental allergy, the reaction to which appears as asthma symptoms that quickly deepen. Once bronchitis sets in, I have a deep and persistent cough that lasts for two to three months. And nothing can coax bronchitis to leave until it feels like leaving. 

Having lived with chronic bronchitis for most of my life, I have developed strategies to control and manage my asthma so it doesn’t get between me and my running. Read more >>

Categories: Healthy Running
Tags: asthma, bronchitis, sickness
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