More Talk About Asthma On Wellsphere
Posted by Lew on December 1, 2009
Hi and thanks so much for returning to my blog. RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
After doing part two of my post about Why I’m Not Grateful I Have Churg Strauss Syndrome: Part 2 Asthma, I happened to go to Wellsphere where I am a ” Top Health Blogger ” in the General Medicine category ( I have suggested a separate CSS ” Community, as they have Lupus under the ” Autoimmune Disease category “ and certainly Churg Strauss Syndrome deserves it’s own attention!) and there was a discussion there started by a member concerning Asthma.
I naturally became involved and here is what the discussion was about..
Posted by swanlogan
Hi, I am new to this Forum and I’m glad to be a part of this forum. I came to know about my asthma one year back. My asthma gets worse when I feel stressed. I start wheezing heavily and my breathing starts to get labored. There are so many reasons that triggers asthma. Tobacco smoke, cold air, exercise and even laughing can cause asthma attacks . On the other hand, people with asthma tell us that they are worse when they are anxious. Really bad attacks which force people to go into hospital often happen after a virus infection of your nose or chest. Some people get asthma if they take aspirin or other painkillers, and some get asthma from dusts or fumes at work.
Does stress can trigger asthma? “
Of course seeing this question led to a few back and forth replies between myself and swanlogan, which I have below for your viewing pleasure…
” Came across this link on web. Just take a look.
http://www.depression-guide.com/asthma.htm ”
”
Hi there.
Many years ago, I was diagnosed with several different forms of asthma..Sarcoidosis, Bronchial Asthma, and around four years ago COPD. Last year I was diagnosed with a disease that I had never heard of called ” Churg Strauss Syndrome “, and unfortunately all of the above aforementioned asthma conditions are all related to my main condition now…Churg Strauss.
My asthma get’s worse during the cold weather here in upstate ny, along with post nasal drip. My CSS and asthma condition are controlled with Prednisone.
I have noticed that there have been times where an asthma attack has gotten worse due to my getting stressed by said attack.
Lew
”
Hey animekid,
Thanks for the information.Sorry to hear about your asthma condition.Well according to a recent study, stress may be a contributing factor. I think that one of the experts referenced in the article specifically says that stress doesn’t cause asthma, but rather exasperates it. This study of the connection between stress and asthma has been the story of the week in the world of asthma.
How’z your asthma now? Is it under control? “
Well, I won’t put too much more from the Wellsphere discussion here for the moment, but I will respond to two things here..
After reading the post the news post on Depression-Guide .com I have to say that I think it creates more issues than it answers and just might confuse the average person ( ie; ME! ) as it talks about a few things that I have listed below…
” Like every other emotional disorder there are theoretical explanation of psychological disorders. One such theoretical framework is offered by the pure physiological theory. It explains the disorder in terms of weakness in the body of a person. Accordingly, specific body organ of a person is predisposed towards specific kind of psychological disorder and an external stress precipitates the disordered reactions. ”
”
The psychoanalytic theory, however stress on the unconscious conflict underlying the psycho-physiological disorder. It explains that behind such disorder there is a repressed longing for parental love. The frustrations caused. by non-fulfillment of love-demanding wishes in early childhood are at the bottom of the emotional conflict. Similarly the repression of hostile feelings towards parents at that stage is also deeply associated with such unconscious conflicts which give rise to peptic ulcer and hypertension
in individuals. “
And the last piece above, is where I have to ” get out of this car ” as I can tell you that ( again, in my particular case ) my asthma has nothing what so ever to do with a repressed longing for parental love!
As far as how my Asthma is at the moment, well the temp in upstate NY today is hovering around 43 degrees here ( and just for those masochists, around 79 degrees and fair…in Maui! ) and so early this am ( around 5:40am to be exact, and 31 degrees according to the news on NBC ) it took almost a half hour of coughing and clearing of my lungs to get all of the gook out of there and get on with my morning.
And to be fair to anyone who does not suffer from all of the thiongs that I personally deal with as far as my condition goes, maybe your asthma is different, maybe it’s just a seasonal affair, and controlled very well…maybe your Asthma is due to allergies, and you have a whole different perspective about all of this…
Tell me about your Asthma condition and how you cope and treat it please.
Please leave your comments here and if you want you can also get into the conversation over at Wellsphere.
Lew
Comments
3 Responses to “More Talk About Asthma On Wellsphere”Leave a comment, and if you'd like your own picture to show up next to your comments, go get a gravatar!
I’ll pass on the psychobabble. While it may be relevant to some people out there, I don’t believe it to be true for the larger population. Regardless, I don’t think it a good idea to start stressing over the love my mother didn’t give me as a child, when in reality, I thought she did a great job. It’s a “half empty glass” approach as far as I’m concerned.
My asthma became difficult to manage this year at the turn of the season. The fact that I caught a cold, which btw is now 45 days old, didn’t help matters. After increasing my daily Advair dosage to the prescribed levels (I was taking it once a day instead of twice a day as prescribed) my asthma is less of an issue. I am also recovering, albeit slowly from my cold as well. I find that responsible eating and getting enough sleep are a formula for success for me. My asthma for the past 4 years has been controlled by my scripts for my CSS. Now that I’ve been off everything save the Advair for more than a year now, I fell into a pre-CSS frame of mind if you will; I began to really stress my body by not getting enough rest. I wasn’t feeling sick, didn’t look sick, so I essentially forgot that I was sick. I was increasing my cycling mileage, skipping a meal here and there and getting less than 8 hours of sleep each night. BAD IDEA!!!
Anyway, stay well Lou…I speak with you again!
Rob
CSS 11/05
Hi Rob!
You know, I am starting to see that we seem to have been thinking alike about our CSS conditions. After I was diagnosed last June ( June of 08 ), I pretty much ignored my condition, or at least tried to as much as possible.
I came out of the hospital on 12 different medications, and I just did not realize what I was dealing with.
Can you imagine, trying to ignore a condition that has pretty much made a life changing impact on your life?
Anyway, I was going to be stubborn about it all…I tried to use an exercise machine ( a BOWFLEX to be exact ) and while I did get some exercise when using it, I certainly did not get it’s full effect, as every time I started to really get involved in a routine, my body just said…no sir!
I cannot handle this type of stress anymore…even playing my drum kit has become taxing, most of the time…which a lot of the time I resent.
Well, for monetary and other reasons, I just sold the exercise machine, and I’m not too sure at the moment about the drum set.
I have also at times not taken my Advair like I should, doing just what you have done now and then.
Bottom line…I’m on 5 medications including the Advair at the moment, I’m weighing 220lbs ( which for me is a bit heavy now ) not eating all that healthy, and not really doing too much exercise at the moment…and of course the worst thing is the constant feeling of being tired all the time.
I’m just hoping that my asthma stays at this level, and doesn’t start to get worse.
Lew