Having asthma is kind of like winning the lottery, except it happens to more people and instead of money you win a chronic difficulty in breathing. I wouldn’t say I’m proud to be an asthmatic, but it’s not information I’m ashamed to share. In doing so, I often discover others who are similarly afflicted, and upon doing so we instantly go from being perfect strangers to perfect strangers who know something insignificant about each other.
My asthma attacks are experienced in a variety of forms, ranging in severity from a shortness of breath to “holy shit, I’m dying”. You can liken an attack to breathing through a straw with your nose plugged; depending on how bad the attack is, the straw keeps getting smaller, going from the wide one you get with a Big Gulp all the way down to those little ones you get with a coffee at a crappy diner. Cycling with asthma is like breathing through those straws while doing wind-sprints up a flight of stairs.
This straw-breathing effect is caused by the contraction of the airways leading to the lungs. The traditional treatment is to use an inhaler to suck in medication which dilates the passages and restores them to a size that allows for comfortable – if still sub-normal – breathing. There are newer, more effective treatments but many of them scare me because they cite side-effects like spontaneous death.
After 38 years, I’ve come to understand a bit about what causes my attacks. There is the cold-induced sort – which can be quite severe – but in my case will usually resolve itself throughout the first hour of riding to where it becomes a nuisance rather than an impediment. I also have acute attacks, which for about 32 years I believed were caused by an allergy to sawdust. These don’t resolve themselves and the condition gets worse until I intervene with an inhaler or a visit to the Emergency Room.
It wasn’t until I moved to Seattle and started having more frequent severe attacks that my doctor here pointed out that it was “crazy” to suggest I’m allergic to sawdust and inquired as to what kind of quack I had been visiting in Minneapolis who would tell me such a thing. He pointed out, quite logically, that I was simply allergic to something that was aerosolized in sawdust. As it turns out, this same element is present in whatever pine trees give off from October to May. Thanks to the Pacific-Northwest’s monopoly on pine trees, I now carry a rescue inhaler with me whenever I go training during these months.
The thing about being a Cyclist with asthma is that Cycling, as an endurance sport, is quite dependent on the rider’s ability to breathe well. In fact, I’ve found that the single most important factor to how well I’m riding on any particular day, regardless of how fat or out of shape I am, is how well I’m able to manage my breathing. The exciting bit is that training with asthma is a lot like resistance training; you get used to a reduced ability to draw oxygen into your lungs, thereby restricting the supply that gets to your muscles. Its like reverse blood-doping. You get used to it and your body adjusts to the reduced supply of gun fuel. Then, on days when the air is clear and warm, you ride like you’re on EPO. I call this the “EPO-Effect”.
I read some time ago that 80% of Pro Cyclists are diagnosed asthmatics who hold a prescription for an inhaler. This makes for a remarkable attraction of gifted endurance athletes to the most breathing-dependent sport on the planet. Surely this is because the EPO-Effect makes asthmatics strong like bull, not for the dilating effect the medication has on the air passageways.
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@Optimiste
Fixed your post. And I wish I remembered who took these shots. I found a lot of them several years back and they are all solid gold. I feel like crediting them to Pedale.Forchetta because I'm sure he'll wind up as being the source.
We were on the mountain the same year, but the shots weren't as great.
Here he is on l'Alpe
And here's his TT bike just before the ITT in Gaillac, which he won. And yeah, I got to sit on it because I gave the security guard a sandwich. (They swapped the front wheel before the start from Mavic - the sponsor - to LightWeight.)
And here he is crushing the ITT. Almost all the other shots we have of people (including Pharmstrong) were on the cowhorns. Ulli was the only dude on the extensions still at this, a reasonably steep part of the climb.
@PeakInTwoYears
The VMH had a pretty serious chest infection (not puh-numb-onia) but got a more powerful prescription than I do.
Her inhaler rocks. I use it when I'm really on the ropes, but it also scares me. It makes me all jittery.
Also, I borrowed a friend's inhaler in 12th grade to bed down an attack. I didn't realize hers can cause hallucinations and I spent the next 12 weeks in a wheelchair after falling out of bed.
@frank
Looks like a George behind Jan.
@JohnB
I have found that through training I can control it very well. Like controlling illness, though, I find that when I'm medium-fit, I'm most resistant to getting sick and to asthma attacks. When I get close to peaking, I start to be very prone to both conditions. Funny how your body starts to walk the knife's edge.
But no matter my fitness, there are triggers that will set me off, pine jizz being the primary one. There is not degree of fitness that will keep that at bay; it is a response to some crap my body hates. Period.
Amazing story; my sister has it more badly than I do and my brother doesn't have it in the slightest. Strange. By my sister and I have both learned to deal with it, and have both become very happy athletes in the process. I'm not up to date on her medication, but I've taken steroids as well to strengthen my lungs after the bad attacks (they weaken and can create a building cycle of attack, weakening, attack, weakening, etc until you basically lose lung function).
The roids really help - my lungs have never felt better - but the side effects scare me.
The drugs scare me all around; I am very open to accepting riders who have doped because I feel I can not judge them for choices they made under circumstances I am not equipped to understand. That said, my own choices center around avoiding drugs whenever possible, and whenever I can, I ride with asthma and don't use the inhaler.
But when push comes to shove, I use it. And the line between push and shove are blurry - hence my hesitance to judge those who wind up doping.
Alcohol's not a drug, right? If it is, disregard the above.
Smart man. Its not much extra weight, and it sure feels good knowing you won't suffocate.
Hilarious. I was already responding to your post before I read this, but this is hysterical. In all honesty, this is central to why I avoid the inhaler when I can. I ride for fun. I want to know the pain inflicted is imposed by my will and not by an external influence. It is very shady, the line I draw, but if I feel him drawing close, I will wait for the next milestone on the route to make a decision about using the inhaler. For instance, I won't use it just before or during a climb, only after or in the valley between.
Unless I'm actually freaking out, in which case I will puff on the fucker like I'm a meth head and point myself for the most direct route home. A hot, steamy shower always helps too.
Did not read the article/comments. I have read that a lot of cyclists are diagnosed asthmatics, as that gets them a TUE.
@DeKerr
+1 badge to you. Also an collective "ish".
@unversio
I will have to dig into the kit bins; I have all of it - I was on a full Bianchi kick inspired by my (our) hero Ullrich and had the Team Kit.
I wore it in my bedroom only, of course, never on the road. That would be sacrilege.
@DCR
How big are you? I have a frame suitable for the right purpose.
Interesting hearing others stories. So long as I keep my daily "preventor" puffing up, I never have an attack. Let that slip and I'm wheezing at the though of dust/cold/exertion. I cannot remember when I had an attack including in races.
So far I have only raced with the club but will be doing some open races next year and someone suggested I check my Astma medicinces are ok with ASADA which I did. Both mine, Ventolin (what you call an emergency inhaler and is a brochial steroid) and Qvar (the daily dosed preventer) came back with ok for Oral use but with conditions. I rang ASADA and they told me the condition is maximum 16 pufs a day! 16!! As a kid I used one of those "spacers" that is a camber you puff the inhaler into and then breath it in at your leisure. Once I puffed that ventolin as much as I dared (could have been 16) and then breathed it in... I passed out (sorta) fell over and had the shakes for an hour or so. Good times, but wont be trying that in a race anytime soon.
@Beers
There was an additional section of my highschool called The Annex where all the classes no one liked were held. Like Math. And Physics. You had to commit to those classes and really fucking care. I loved them. So you could get out and be awesome. You had to care, so you could get through and be more badass at the other end.
Same goes for the phlegm. That's a special ward of Awesome that you should be proud to be a part of, but make every effort to fucking jettison.
Nail, head, you're welcome.