Throughout all of my sporting life severe asthma has played a huge part but it had not stopped me participating until I suffered from complications due to having a severe asthma attack and landing on life support.
Throughout all my sporting life however I have always had people question how I can take part in high level sport because I have severe asthma and end up in hospital so often and in ITU etc. I even get asked this by other people who have severe asthma which just highlights how complex severe asthma is and how many different ways it manifests in people.
What many people don’t know is that there are various high level athletes who compete at the highest level of their sport that also have severe asthma which is controlled with medications like biologics. In these athletes what you don’t see is the effort they put in to manage their asthma but also the hospital admissions that are associated with it too. I am no different. I don’t play a sport that is in the media like many others but I still play sport while living with severe asthma. It’s tough but it can be done.
Today was one of those tough days. Yesterday I felt not too bad and had been doing some mobility work in the gym and then today it felt like I was breathing through cottonwool and was restricted to my flat. The side of severe asthma that people don’t see not even my family really.
A few weeks back was another time when my severe asthma hit me hard. This time it was during wheelchair rugby league training which took 20mg salbutamol to get me through but the night was a struggle and the day after a write off.
It is a hard balance to work out the best way to manage severe asthma when striving to perform at sport due to how unpredictable it is especially when your life becomes fairly prescriptive to try and achieve your goals. You need to be able to hold your hands up and give in to the bad breathing and aknowledge that you training plans need to be delayed by a day or 2. At first this really frustrated me but now I can accept it as have coping strategies.
For me and the type of severe asthma I have playing sport outside is problematic and that is what has held me back over the years except for skiing where the air in the mountains is pretty clear. I now participate in wheelchair rugby league which benefits my lungs in so many ways that other sports do not. The first is that it is inside- there are no external factors such a pollen or smoke (unless the sports hall doors are open and people decide to smoke at them).
One of the key things I have found since taking part in a wheelchair sport is that I have the ability to play for longer compared to when I was playing a running based game. I spent a while thinking why this was and realised it is due to the muscles that I am using. I am playing a wheelchair sport now so my leg muscles which are some of the biggest in our body are not being used and therefore they are not needing the same energy supply or oxygen consumption as they do when you are playing a running game. This means that my other muscles are able to make use of the extra oxygen and also my lungs can too especially as their function is diminished a bit so they need more than most peoples do.
What I want people to understand is that there are so many different types of severe asthma but also everyone can manage different levels of activity depending on the environment they are in and the triggers that cause difficulties in breathing. For me over the years I have learnt what I can and what I cant do (there were times when I would try and do what I couldn’t but with age comes wisdom- I think). I also want people know the process that goes into being able to take part in sport and the sacrifice I make. I love sport and over the years friends have fallen by the wayside so my social circle is pretty small now so I don’t have so sacrifice seeing friends like I perhaps once would have before. It means I can rest before and after training or doing strength and mobility work in the gym. To put it in perspective for every hour of activity I need at least 2 hours rest before hand and even longer after to recover. I would reckon that for 1-2 hours training I need 6 hours rest and recovery. This is the side people don’t see and they assume that I am able to participate like any other person.
Severe asthma really sucks and it frustrates me as it is always different, just when I think I have a handle on it I get thrown a curveball and I never know when the next attack will happen or when I will be exposed to triggers in a supposed safe zone but right now I feel I am excelling at becoming an adaptive athlete despite my lungs and despite the complications I live with as a result of severe asthma and the medications used to (attempt to) control it.
ANONYMOUS-ASTHMA 