h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Firstly I would like to state that I am an asthmatic to start with, so don't jump on my head.

When I was a design undergraduate I designed an asthma nebuliser for children between the age of 1-4 years, enabling teachers and carers to dispense the drug in the safest manner with the least amount of training and confusion.

During the research for the project I stumbled across an article (of course which I don't have the details for to hand, this WAS over seven years ago ) that was published after a study on the psychosomatic effect that just the act of receiving a 'drug' had on an asthma attack. The study group were split in to two, one half received their usual drug in the usual way the other half were given a placebo in the form of their usual medecine. Obviously nobody in the test group knew whether they got the real stuff or a placebo. They were all told to note the effects that their medecine gave them for a period of time.

After the results were looked at it was seen that the placebo had as much useful effect as the salbutamol drug. This displayed that the asthmatics in the test group were suffering asthma which was curable when they 'thought' it was cured.

This is all well and good, but as asthma is as often brought on by a stressful situation (the fact that you are finding it difficult to breathe) being able to control your response to that stimuli is immensely difficult.

Just another addition to the discussion. By the way, what I find is useful for my asthma is activities that force you to control your breathing such as swimming (or SCUBA diving http://www.mvsac.org.uk) and cycling.

Have fun and breathe easy

Kd

Funny you say that - I thought I was just lucky - I am asthmatic, not too much, I guess, but I wake in the night wheezing and have had a few scary moments.

Unless I run or excercise.

The more I do it, the less it affects me. I think I've got it licked. Sometimes I need a quick puff (salbutamol) before a run, but I can do about ten miles a week of running or a strenuous mountain bike run without becoming a hospital case !

What I want to know is can (or should) one just 'put up with' the wheezing until it goes (sometimes at least an hour, sometimes never without inhaler). I asked my doctor and he said 'use the inhaler, it's bad to resist it's use.'

But that was years ago. Have things changed since then ? I'm sure I can just 'ignore' it away ???

Rrrr

Apparently you can if you're an ex-pat New Zealander - I can't tell you the number of stories I've heard about asthmatic Kiwis, who've left the country, and their asthma disappears overnight.

I think there are some psychomatic factors in asthma, like inhaler dependency, but I'm not sure it's the *main* cause.

The 'main' cause for me seems to be sleep, pickled onions and hydrocarbons. But individually. Haven't tried a combo yet. Oh and some cats.

Rrrr

Asthmatics or not, pickled onions and hydrocarbons in bed sounds like a nasty combination.