[Closed] Astham Test Thingy-Score's pls?

Hang on *retrieves Peak Flow meter*

610 now, about 680 after riding so you win 🙂 Last year I had a lung infection and it was down to 300. Stairs became quite tedious for a month.

Still improved 12% in 18 months since moving here, and still reckon there's a few more PSI in there to be unleashed !

im not normally that good,dunno how ive suddenly got super power lungs from. 🙂
had asthma since a teen.

Hang on while i also *retrieves Peak Flow meter* not seen that for a while

520 but was cr_p on a ride last night so before christmas cold i must of been doing well . 2yrs ago it was 350 without a cold or infection , so having new riding mates allowing me to get out more have worked wonders for me .

350 2 months ag,o a hefty course of steroids later and 580 with the remains of a sniffle 😯

The cold air is murder though any tips.

I'm on 680 atm but the cold weather has not been kind
:'(

750 at the moment - doing loads of swimming and running recently and generally healthy. Have been as low as 200 when ill.

Aren't steroids great 😀

350 at the moment large course of steroids before xmas wish i could get it up.

Anyone find the new propellant on the steroid inhaler rather nice as its got alcohol in it 🙂

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And its CFC free 🙂

Seretide 250 twice a day is my drug , using my last dics at the moment then the new CFC free ones .

Pulmicort 200mg turbohaler - tastes like sh1t and can give you oral thrush if you don't rinse properly afterwards. Nice

Switched to a single inhaler as well can't remember the name but recommended by one of the guys who I ride with who is a gp.

Went from Steroid and blue inhaler to just this. Way better. Asthmatic since about 7 still got me out of cross country at school 🙂

200 tho! Jeez, I couldn't get out of bed on that. Well not quickly!

Alex what is the single in inhaler your using is a light or dark purple colour?

550 😕

Was 400 a couple of months ago, now 850 but i think thats technique as opposed to any improvement in my lungs.

symbicort I think. White inhaler 100 shots,twist the bottom to activate. Real improvement over the brown/blue inhalers.

850! Are you sure you're asthmatic?

Yes definitely asthmatic. Takes a lot of effort and drugs to get it like that.

Got late onset Asthma (53) this year. Real killer till the doctor worked out what it was. Basically coughing my lungs up for about 1.5 hours every night about 7 o’clock give or take. Rest of the day not to bad. Doctor checked my lung function Peak Flow meter 200 at first. Once I had the Inhaler went up to 550-600 no idea what is was before. Everything has got worse again now, down to about 300. Hope it is the winter IE I have a cause. Although I cannot doing anything about it I still want to know. Of course it could still be the winter or to be more precise my wood burner i.e. dust. Either way the asthma and 2 weeks in hospital with epilepsy means no more Rugby for me.......well not till next year anyway?? Does not seem to be a problem cycling. Well not until I have finished.....therefore exercise maybe the problem again nothing I can do about that as I live rural, as in 6 miles nearest shop and no car. Often cycle 11 miles to pub and between 11 miles and 40 miles home depending on how much I have had to drink. Anyway my aim is to find with near certainty what the trigger is and maybe I can do something about. It may of cause be something I can do nothing about like the dusting!!

Surrounded By Zulus - Member
Yes definitely asthmatic. Takes a lot of effort and drugs to get it like that.

When I'm fit and healthy I'll blow a 450. That's when I'm not taking any inhalers, no symptoms at all, feeling great. I'm extremely fit, can bust out a road century without any training, and can take a 38lb FR round a trail faster than most people can take an XC bike.

Doctors have always been concerned because it's so low, but I refuse to take inhalers when I have no reason to. Does make me wonder what I'd be like if I could blow the 650 or whatever for my height and age.

Wow! Militant, I'd be in bed with a 450. How come everyone has a peak flow meter? I have to guess although I'm usually very accurate, feels like I'm having a 640 day.

Anyone ever tried those lung exercise resistance things?

I don't have asthma but chronic bronchitis so my resp volume and peak flow never gets very bad but need a preventer esp in the winter. However I had to get a peak flow meter when I did my 2 weeks PF diary from the chemist for a prescription charge - its about the same price off prescription if you want to monitor you PF Stuuey.

So is the brown inhaler a steroid one?

where you get the peak flow metres from?

Yes brown one is steroid, blue is the ventolin (of similar) (dilates your airways when you are in an acute wheezy stage)

Just pop into your prescribing chemist (they might have to order it).

Have a look here if you want more info:

http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Inhalers-for-Asthma.htm

The data sheet for my 100mg steroid inhailer suggest doses under 400mg/day (4 puffs) are unlikely to induce oral thrush (candidiasis)

Mines around 500. Couple of years ago when i had bronchitis, i struggled to even get it to 50, was a scary experience 🙁

out of interest, how many of you get the flu jab as you have asthma?

Me - swine and winter 🙂

Used to be low 400s during my early teens, but over the past few years it's improved dramatically. Now 830-850 on a good day, 600-630 with a chest infection/bad day..

I used to have the attitude MB had. No taking drugs unless I was on point of death. Then when I actually understood exactly what "chronic disease" is, and how active management was a good approach to being able to do what I wanted to do, I changed my mind 😉

Fair play if you don't, but having suffered 30 years+, I've no idea what normal lungs feel like. But I do know what happens if I lose even 10% of lung function, hence being pretty regimented on the drugs.

I still have a snaffle of the blue before riding - especially in winter - and try not to go mad until I can feel the pipes have been opened.

Peak Flow meters are ace. Cost £7 and useful for tracking how things are going. I intend to get my riding pals to try it so they can understand why sometimes I cannot speak at the top of climbs!

Basically the following gives the same effect as being at altitude it opens up you lungs:- [b]Powerbreathe breathing exerciser (variable resistance)[/b] There are plenty of other models and I have read that some doctors are giving them out on prescription (don't quote me on that). There are a quite a few athletes who use them. In tests some asthmatics (40%) did not need drugs if used regularly. Note the test was on 20 people only 10 on placebos etc. I am trying at the moment but it appears no benefits. Of course I could be benefiting IE my asthma could be a lot worse. Worth looking into? Note there are a lot of companies selling similar devices. JB

About 550-75 for me but after a hard turbo training session it can go up to nearly 700.

I have one of those PowerBreathe things. Tried it when I was really struggling. Hard to know if it triggered any improvement. I'll ask at my next Asthma clinic if they've recommended them to anyone else.

Is this on the standard peak flow meter? I wasn't aware that asthma affected lung capacity outside of an attack.

Well, I carry my blue inhaler everywhere, but last time I took one? Erm... erm... October? My take on it is, it never really improved when on steroids (maybe hit 500) and it's not holding me back now that I'm not on steroids. Sure I only hit 450, but I don't wheeze, I don't have to stop and catch breath, and I'm pretty damn fit! If the doctor had said "you still need to take the steroids because [i]x[/i], [i]y[/i], and when you're older [i]z[/i]", it'd be a different matter. But they didn't.

Serious question - any reason I should be taking my steroids?

Steroids suppress the inflammatory reaction, making an attack both less likely and less severe.

The data sheet for my 100mg steroid inhailer suggest doses under 400mg/day (4 puffs) are unlikely to induce oral thrush (candidiasis)

it's shit technique (plastering your tonsils in the stuff rather than your lungs) and failure to drink some water afterwards that mostly cause thrush

Alex - Member
symbicort I think. White inhaler 100 shots,twist the bottom to activate. Real improvement over the brown/blue inhalers.

850! Are you sure you're asthmatic?

My other half uses this once a day and it has made a massive improvement to her asthma....

Steroids suppress the inflammatory reaction, making an attack both less likely and less severe

Yep, that's what they say. But one attack in 23 years ain't bad, and that maybe wouldn't have happened if I hadn't taken a nearly empty reliever to a friend's dusty house with a dog.

What I should have said is - Given that steroids don't make my asthma much better, am I building up problems for the future by not taking steroids now? (I'm 27)

I can usually do 700+, but the flu got me over Christmas and I've been struggling since. Back up near 600 at the moment following a dose of Prednisalone, but its taking ages and I'm fed up with feeling like a smoker... I don't usually have attacks as such, but it is induced by exercise, so I take a lungful of blue inhaler before every ride. The weather certainly affects me too

*dusts off peak flow meter that hasn't been used in a while and nurse says is now obsolete*

Mine's on about 620, which is a bit lower than I remember but would have been a lot lower a couple of weeks ago - I think I had a duff steroid inhaler, started using a fresh one and now my lungs seem to be twice as big.

830-850 on a good day

Mine only goes up to 800. Maybe that's why the nurse said it was obsolete - have they changed the scale or something?

Just a bit of background. I had really bad asthma as a child. In hospital and attacks all the time. Now I hardly ever have it and nearly never take drugs. For those with Asthma I really recommend looking at what is causing the attacks. I was not very lucky as a child as I grew up on a farm and gradually found out that loads of things triggered attacks including horses, cats, farm dust, house dust, and swimming pools. Once all those things are excluded I never got Asthma. I am a bit Asthmatic in houses in the UK but it may be as they are damper than here in Sweden but for those who have asthma triggered by environmental conditions it is really worth trying to find out what triggers it.

The advice seems to be swimming helps asthma but the chlorine made mine loads worse. I am fine swimming in some pools but for example I went to Virgin gym over Christmas and they had a bubble pool that immediately gave me Asthma, it was like being gassed!

i'm terrible only about 450 (with good technique) and when we were doing spirometry testing i had an asthma pattern. Even tried it again with an inhaler and watched the increase in performance. So technically i should have asthma but never (touch wood) had an attack...

Militant_biker - I'm in a similar position to you. Have had asthma since i was a baby. It was really bad when i was younger, but now i'm 31 and pretty fit, its hardly a problem. Cycling and running has been the best thing i've ever done for asthma! Mine mainly hits me when i get a cold, or an allergic reaction to something - cats, dust etc. My problem these days seems to be that when i do get a cold/an attack, its really bad. As far as I understand, if i was taking the steroids on a daily basis, i'd either not get the attack or it would be much milder. I think you need to have the brown inhaler in your system for something like 24-48 hours prior to an attack for it to make a difference. I don't take the brown inhaler anymore as on a day-to-day basis, i don't think it'd make any difference. The only time i feel i want to take it is when i've got a cold as it always goes for my asthma, and i end up on steriods and antibiotics.

That's part of the reason why i was curious about the swine and flu jab - i'm down to have one again this year. I don't like the idea of it, however, its tricky as i know if i got the flu it'd be back on steroids and antibiotics, and i don't like taking that lot either!

DGOAB - Thanks for that. Sounds very similar to mine. In years gone by I would always keep a cough cold for weeks after getting one, but these days, not really. I've never had a flu jab either.

I don't do the flu jab so not entirely consistent 😉 Same for me as a kid, dreadful and we had those "spinhalers" which were useless. So I think the drugs/management have got better in the last 25 years.

Luckily now I don't wheeze much unless I'm suffering with a cold as per DG above. And the docs reckon riding is the best thing you can do (well any aerobic sport I guess).

At the clinic, everyone else moans they can't do anything. We had a little group session (no not THAT kind!) when I tried to convince them that after a bit of riding/running/swimming they'd feel so much better.

No takers 😉

Yup agree. Remove allergens first (hard for me as I'm allergic to everything), keep weight down, stay fit, drink coffee and don't have lots of milk. Coffee makes a huge difference!