Gratefully accepted.

No cures as such, I even find that I get it in Oz here when the temp is below 5 degrees in the mornings. The only advice I can offer is keep it nice and slow for the first mile or so and don’t overload the lungs too quickly. Breathing through the mose warms the air up a bit before it hits the lungs as well.

Are you taking medication?
If so and its not working, see your GP/specialist. There are lots of options and the standard options don’t work for everyone, they are just the first thing to try.

Really annoying.After a summer of cycling the first cold snap brought it back.I,m on a couple of inhalers but I just dont think there a real solution for the problem

I had the usual blue/brown inhaler combo, and still suffered. I struggled for years then actually bothered to go to one of these annoying asthma reviews I was forever getting letters for. They tried a couple of different drugs, but they didn’t improve it much. They patronised me about sealing my lips around the inhaler and the usual crap, but then the asthma nurse suggested yet another different inhaler that’s not really any stronger than the usual brown jobbies but was a drug combination one that’s purple. Bingo. Just One puff of that every other day and I’ve completely forgotten I ever suffered with asthma. Its gone from waking needing salbutamol twice a night, to absolutely nothing. None of the old triggers bother me either. I guess you may have already tried a few different drugs, but please keep going to the asthma clinics and trying others until you find what works for you. I hate the idea of depending on drugs, but one puff every other day of the right thing has transformed my life and i’m taking a tiny fraction of the medication I used to.

What Grimy says see your GP and visit an Asthma clinic. It can be trial bad error until the get the right treatment for you but they will get you comfortable. Not seeking help means they can’t do anything for you.

Get a facemask or buff or domething similar to avoid breathing in cold air.
What folk above havd said- if you have some decent sorted meds/inhalers you should be ok.
Oh aye. Get the Flu jab too just in case!

What’s that one called Grimy? Might have to go see my doctors about a different combo as the blue/brown doesn’t work too efectively when I’ve got it.

Strangely I seemed to outgrow it several years ago – no inhalers needed at all for about 4 years. Then it came back for some unknown reason. Living in warmer climes certainly helps minimise its effects but it’s a pretty extreme move to make just for that!

I guess the purple one Grimy. Is referring to is Seritide. I understand it’s a preventer (the brown one) and a long lasting reliever (the blue one) combined. I use it too and it has also changed my asthma completely – no more wheezing, even during exercise or cold.

Marmoset – The purple inhaler is Seretide. I can also say it has revolutionised my control of asthma – brilliant stuff. I was on the brown one, but it didn’t really help, I was taking a lot of salbutamol reliever. Now I hardly ever have to take the reliever medication, and my peak flow is about 25% better.

If you feel your asthma is poorly controlled, it might be worth getting an appointment with your GP and ask to try it.

I used to have the blue/brown combo but for a few years now I’ve been on something called Symbicort which is a preventative and works really well for me.

As mentioned above, breathing through the nose & wearing a buff over my nose/mouth helps when it’s cold.

I also feel cutting out wheat & to a lesser extent milk from my diet helped a lot, could just be placebo effect though.

Don’t live in a filthy city.

Have suffered with Asthma all my life. Was at it’s worst when I worked in London and spent lots of time commuting by bike.

Now commute through forest and woodland in Sweden and my breathing has had a huge improvement. Also haven’t caught a cold for at least two years (probably to do with no taking the tube/train).

I’m on Symbicort (red turbo haler). Took it twice a day before but in the last few years I’ve only taken if I begin to feel any breathing restriction.

Branson moved to the Virgin Islands to improve his health too. Nothing to do with Tax. Nope. Not at all.

As a life long asthma suffer I have a few strategies for coping with winter

When moving between warm and cold areas, take your time to adjust to the temperature difference, a few minutes spent managing the temperature transition is well worth the effort/time.

When exercising outside were a buff or similar over your nose & moth until you breathing settles, if your lungs hurt – Stop and rest

Stay away as much as possible from people with colds/snotty noses, I make a point when in work of sitting as far away from these people as possible and thank them for sharing.

Speak to your doctor/asthma nurse about managing winter and ask for a review of your medication and if you feel your asthma getting out of control, up the dosage and visit the doctor and/or asthma nurse quickly. Lung infections, etc are dangerous as they can quickly deteriorate into pneumonia, etc.

I’ve never suffered myself but have read that swimming can help. Could be an old wives tale but might be worth giving it a try if you have the time.

Oh, and if you’re seeing your GP, might be worth asking about a pneumonia jab in addition to the normal flu jab you should be getting. I got hospitalised by a dose of pneumonia a while back and it took a long time to recover.

The best solution is to live somewhere else unfortunately.

Winter’s back, asthma’s back. Any cures?

FTFY..! 😀

:pedantface:

i find regular exercise is the key to keeping it manageable.

doesn’t need to be intense or anything specific but regular steady cycling helps. commuting is the key for me.

Teacake,I,m very fortunate in my choice of location.Next to an A road in Middlesbrough!

I find exercise all but cures mine. A few weeks off the bike and i get asthma at nigths. However if I keep training and keep the lungs cleared it goes away 100%

Feels like your spitting up your lung for the forst 30mins or so but after that it clears.

I’ve also read that us mtbs are very susceptible to Asthma attacks.Something to do with long days out,vegatation,steep climbs and dampness etc.Anything in it do you think?

I tried the Symbicort (in the form of a Turbuhaler);

It didn’t work for me though – it was worse than the brown one.

What is helping is my new one, Flutiform;

But, the asthma nurse was reluctant at first because my GP surgery have been taking people off this one to put them onto Turbuhaler as it saves about £20 each time I think.

I saw a programme the other day where some guy drank his own wee as an asthma cure. Though I don’t think I’ll be trying that.

Seretide for me, was on numerous as a kid but had the Seretide for years now, although i would say the biggest difference recently has been cutting Gluten from my diet. Both kids were diagnosed Coeliac 18-24months ago and i made the decision to follow the gluten free diet and it has certainly helped.

I can see how swimming would help, increases lung strength i think, used to swim competitively until mid teens with no problems but like everything years away from it i notice the difference when i try an get back in the pool now.

I’ve also read that us mtbs are very susceptible to Asthma attacks.Something to do with long days out,vegatation,steep climbs and dampness etc.Anything in it do you think?

It’s possible that ‘some’ of us have a slightly lower general cardiovascular fitness compared to roadies, and that, combined with sudden bursts of exertion on steep climbs compared with steady work, makes us more likely to trigger exercise-induced asthma.

Overall, though, we’ve got to be in better shape than the majority of sedentary asthmatics. I certainly feel great after coughing up a lung on the top of a big climb…

Not sure if it will help but here is my experience.

I have suffered since a small child with Asthma and spent a number of weeks in hospital as I was growing up. It was a struggle keeping it under control however in my late teens I started to do a bit of jogging to lose weight. Even though I was exempt from school PE lessons etc at times it was manageable enough to do a bit of exercise.

After a few months my weight had dropped and my GP (who was supportive of me running) was surprised at the results. I wouldnt say I was previously “sickly” but a game of football or a bit of running around would often trigger symptoms.

After about a year or so I was running around 50 miles per week my heart rate was around 40bpm at rest and my lung capacity was excellent (off the scale on the normal monitors they used)

I still have occasional symptoms and even though (30 years later) I still train every day and I still have to take an inhaler before exercise. I have never felt any benefit to the regular “preventor” inhalers and I have discussed it ad infinitum with various GP’s and nurses over the years and on a couple of occasions had “discussions” with nurses who have insisted that I should use them and resist using the “reliever” inhaler which I was using pre exercise.
It simply didnt allow me to run and no matter how much I persevered it never allowed me to exercise without first taking a preventor as well. After trying every available one I gave up and pretty much refused. I know have an “understanding” with my regular Asthma nurse who fortunately takes an overall view of my health and my commitment to keeping very fit etc and is generally happy with my choice.

My Asthma is much more controllable now and I put a lot of that down to 30+ years of competitive running. I still get the odd bout where it is difficult to control, normally when the seasons are changing rather than either very hot or very cold. Sometimes this lasts for a few days or a week which has occasionally been an inconvenience if it coincided with an important race but has never been bad enough to be hospitalised so in general running has been the best thing I could have done.

HTH

Similar experience here to surfer, but biking rather than running.

Had chronic asthma from age 3, was heavily drugged every morning until they stopped working when I was 7. Doc suggested some light exercise might help as I had become sedentary in the last year or so. Swimming, cycling and walking were all suggested. No local pool close enough (no car in the family) so that was out. Walking triggered me after about a minute, so tried a friend’s bike. Went off for a good hour round the local park without much problem, bearing in mind I had learnt to stop what I was doing at the earliest sign of an attack. Two weeks later had my first bike. Haven’t stopped riding since. My check-ups show my lungs to be as good as a non-sufferer, my heart is stupidly strong despite an irregular heartbeat and I rarely need a puffer.

As for the winter triggering anything, I find letting myself adjust to a change in ambient temperature for a minute or so works wonders. The only time I have problems now is when out shopping and nipping in and out of shops, the constant shocks can make me bad, so I stick to covered centres or take my time. For commuting a buff as mentioned before really helps. If I’m out on the bike all day I don’t have a problem after the first gentle minute or so.

I was in hospital when I was younger with asthma and was off school and sports a lot. Grew up on a farm and was allergic to most stuff, cats horses, dust and damp. Even getting a bit older getting colds and the like was a nightmare. Used blue inhaler on and off. Now though I never get it and take no drugs. The cure for me is avoiding triggers such as:

Cats, dust, smokers, damp houses, processed food (not sure which but some seem to make me more sensitive so I try to avoid most, unfortunetly this may include beer and wine). Biggest thing was moving to Sweden. I don’t think it is the clean air though as it can’t be that much different from Northumberland where I grew up. The difference I would say is how they heat houses ans how they are built. In the winter the heating is on most of the time constant so houses never get damp like in the UK. This can be done as houses have much better insulation, triple glazing and double outside doors that are really well fitted. They also though seem to have good ventilation so they don’t get stuffy.

I tend to suffer from October through to Feb. Generally fine all through spring/summer which ends up with me ditching the brown inhaler until winter.

This year I’ve kept up the preventer through summer and haven’t felt too bad so far.

Having said that, it hasn’t got properly cold yet…

Been fine till last week when people started to light up their log burners 😥

Does the Chlorine in swimming pools not irritate your asthma.I have thought about replacing winter cycling with swimming.

Swiming was rubbish for my asthma in the uk due to the chlorine. I thinck it was one of the main reasons it was bad when I was a child

I live at 300m on the west end of a Welsh Mountain and suffer, so it’s not just pollution that triggers it.

Symbicort for me. Rode with a doc who recommended I switched from the brown/blue combo. Massive difference. Peak flow is 650 on a good day now and it’s used to be about 450-500.

I definitely take it a bit easier in winter and take a couple of puffs of the blue before exercise. But the more I rode, the better it got.

Also not having to go to London anymore seems to make a difference but it might be placebo 😉

Thanks for all your replies.I,m going to give swimming a go tomorrow. If you here of a drowning in the North-East its me.Also might take one of those food allergy tests.Monkey.

Hey Monkey. Fellow sufferer just up the road in Guisborough.

I have similar experiences to a lot of the folk above. I use the blue when I get wheezy. I have a brown inhaler but seldom use it – I find it gives me a sore throat. I’d be interested in changing drugs, will speak to my GP.

I find that setting off steadily and taking things easy for the first 30/40 minutes really helps.

Neil.

Symbicort for me, works really well and hardly have to take my Ventolin. The most effective thing for my asthma is cetrizine, basically a once a day piriton but on prescription.

Anyone use a Respro mask? Coal and wood burners making my lungs burn!!