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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@JohnB
I have a vivid memory of my father dropping me off at the shops one night about 25years ago. I noticed he was wheezing and offered him my inhaler. He told me he'd had the attack for two days now but he was fine and it wasn't getting any worse. I thought that strange but went my way. That night, I slept soundly in my bed as my mother finally convinced my father come with her to the hospital for treatment. With about 3min left to get to the hospital mum tells me she saw him sort of leap/jump a little out of the seat. His heart had stopped. They revived him in at the Hospital and he was on pure Oxygen for days. He was "clinically dead" for several minutes. The following night I got to go and see him in the ECU. I remember touching his wrist and the skin why dry and felt like popping candy does in your mouth. Mum explained due to the amount of O2 he was on, it leaches out of his blood, though the skin but get's trapped under the dead outter layer. Touching him pops the bubbles. The medicines they put him on to "cure" the effects from his brush with death have given him some serious other problems. Today, he is mear shadow of himself with medial issues up the wazoo such as Adisons Disease, and Osteperosis. His body does heal very well with a cut taking months to heal. I really has screwed his entire life from that night on, his quality of live is greatly reduced today and I am convinced he will die many years before his time.
I've never been caviliear about an attack since. Despite that, I'm ashamed to say, but I have, at times messed with my preventer even once thinking I was cured and going off it for months. I wasn't, apprently the effects of the preventer can take weeks to wear off. I'm glad for this artical to relive that night and remind me not to screw with astma.
@frank
Those would be an old set of white leather cycling shoes with a suntour cycling cap. I sure hope you aren't assuming I am a runner by any means. I do admit to attempting running in the past and it has only affirmed my detest of the sport.
@frank
I am 5'9" with roughly a 32/33" inseam. I feel comfortable on most frames in the 53-55 range.
@VeloSix
Dude! Pneumonia and losing a spleen are 2 very different things. I'll take the former for sure. I was in a crash for the "final sprint" once and went down hard. I got knocked out, lost 2 teeth and a lot of skin. I was the lucky one. The guy right behind me punctured a lung and lost a spleen. 23 years later, people still talk about that crash.
@DeKerr
I'm pretty sure Merckx's ball sack sweat would have cost less when I got the bill for that treatment.
@Beers
Ya. I've had it 4 times now, and like Frank mentioned above, it's almost always been when I've been in fantastic shape. There's a 'weight limit' I've discovered that if I cross, I'm super fast for a few days, then *bam* I'm in bed with a fever and gnarly cough.
@frank
Wow. I wonder what was in that inhaler. 24 years in medicine, and I've never heard of someone passing out from hitting one too much. Mrs. Scaler's grand folk were hardcore smokers. The type that would light a new fag (see what I did there?) with the one they were finishing. About twice per cig, they'd hit the ventolin for a couple puffs. Never seen anything like it.
@unversio
I'm currently haggling for a '99 Bianchi Veloce on Craigs List (of assholes trying to make too much money off stuff). I'll keep an eye out for what you're after.
@Beers
It is like training at altitude. But at the altitude where you do more harm than good. Like the proverbial "Death Zone" in mountaineering. I tried to go skiing in Jackson when I had it. No good. No good at all.
@frank
Absolutely right. Thank you. It took a second look and a follow-up analysis of the photo to see my mistake.
And thanks for your personal accounts of that Tour. You on his ITT bike: how cool is that?
@DCR
Just skimming the thread, no clue why you posted that but those are hands down the best looking shoes available.
I don't have asthma, but about 10 years ago I was shot in the neck with .410 shotgun. It was a contact wound and it destroyed much of my upper airway and left me with an airway about 50% occluded by scar tissue. I am back to riding and occasionally racing, but once my oxygen demand reaches a certain point, my performance plateaus and I've been unable to do more then minimally expand that barrier. I'm speculating that my body will eventually adapt and I will experience improvement, but how much and for how long, at this point I don't know.
@DerHoggz
It was in response to @frank about my avatar. I do love those shoes. For anyone interested they are the Rapha/giro Grand tour shoes. Being rapha you can imagine the cost though!
@frank @unversio I found a complete EV4 in flat black for sale with a Sram red build. It's a 53CM.