I raced for a number of years with pretty nasty allergies and asthma, but
never took any meds for them. Initially they tried all manner of things
to
target the allergies, but nothing seemed to work (didn't even make me
drowsy) so they gave up. I sounded like a steam engine when climbing back
then, and that's pretty much the way I sound now. Colder weather
definitely
makes it worse, no question... below about 60 degrees or so I get some
wheezing action going from time to time.

Pehaps, my tolerance to wheezing is lower than yours. And in my case
it's also the chest tightness, the chest pain, shortness of breath and
the burning in the throat. Since all these symptoms are relatively new
to me, they make me very nervous (exhacerbating the original symptoms).
Before the asthma ocurred the breathing was never my rate-limiting
factor.

No, this isn't about your tolerance... my asthma is a mild inconvenience;
yours sounds far more serious.

When you talk about meds, have you used an inhaler? That was all the rage
when I raced; people who didn't have asthma would claim otherwise and get
prescriptions for inhalers

I use inhalers (albuterol and advair), but they don't work. The only
reliable "cure" is traveling out of CA or at least away from the
coast/central valley.

Does your doctor give you any reason why you're not responding to albuterol
or advair?

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com


wrote in message
ups.com...

I can't imagine that the "cure" (racing while wearing a mask) wouldn't be
worse than the illness.

yeah, I will look like a cyborg, but...


I raced for a number of years with pretty nasty allergies and asthma, but
never took any meds for them. Initially they tried all manner of things
to
target the allergies, but nothing seemed to work (didn't even make me
drowsy) so they gave up. I sounded like a steam engine when climbing back
then, and that's pretty much the way I sound now. Colder weather
definitely
makes it worse, no question... below about 60 degrees or so I get some
wheezing action going from time to time.

Pehaps, my tolerance to wheezing is lower than yours. And in my case
it's also the chest tightness, the chest pain, shortness of breath and
the burning in the throat. Since all these symptoms are relatively new
to me, they make me very nervous (exhacerbating the original symptoms).
Before the asthma ocurred the breathing was never my rate-limiting
factor.

When you talk about meds, have you used an inhaler? That was all the rage
when I raced; people who didn't have asthma would claim otherwise and get
prescriptions for inhalers

I use inhalers (albuterol and advair), but they don't work. The only
reliable "cure" is traveling out of CA or at least away from the
coast/central valley.

I would not mind having a short painful ~30 min attack after a race,
and be done with it. But the "attack" I got after this recent effort
has been lasting endlessly for days. This is what ****es me off.