Debbie Kyle couldn't understand why she felt so winded and out of shape during workouts. She was in her early 20s and fit, but still couldn't run on the treadmill without feeling short of breath. Feeling discouraged, she stopped exercising altogether.
"I felt like it was work, and I wasn't enjoying it," recalls the 25-year-old student from Northridge.
Twenty pounds later, and struggling with allergies, she saw a doctor who diagnosed her with asthma. But instead of telling Kyle to hang up her running shoes, he encouraged her to start exercising again.
The conventional wisdom today for children and adults with asthma is that in most cases, exercise can lessen their severity of symptoms and often help reduce their medication.
Exercise-induced asthma affects about 80% of those with allergic asthma, says Dr. Robert Eitches, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. Symptoms, which include coughing, wheezing, a tightness in the chest and shortness of breath, can be triggered by breathing faster and through the mouth, which occurs during exercise. The air that's breathed in is usually dryer and cooler than air inhaled through the nose. Other factors, such as pollution, pollen and colds, can also worsen symptoms.
Decades ago, doctors recommended rest, rest and more rest for asthma patients, resulting in generations of children who grew up staring out the window watching their friends play.
"There is something generational," says Eitches. "Older people especially were told as children to be quiet and stay in bed and wait it out."
That's what happened to 65-year-old Jaycie Ingersoll during her childhood in San Antonio, Texas. "When I was growing up, resting was the deal" for asthma sufferers, she says. Asthma and bronchial infections caused her to miss school and playtime. Although symptoms subsided during her teens, the Los Angeles real estate agent says they returned when she went through menopause.
About 20 years ago a nutritionist suggested she try walking to ease symptoms. It worked. "I would feel better, no matter how awful I felt in the morning," says Ingersoll, who also stretches, practices yoga-style breathing exercises and swims during the warmer months. She's stopped using most of her asthma medications, except for an occasional spray of albuterol, a drug that relaxes and opens air pathways in the lungs.
