# Recovering lung capacity



## shesulsa (Feb 7, 2006)

These are just some personal antecdotes on my own lung health history that I want to share in case there are others out there who could benefit from this information.

I grew up with 2 smokers in the house, leaving me with underdeveloped sinuses, allergies and reduced lung capacity. I've always had poor cardiovascular endurance - even when I ran regularly.

My medical history contains such things as recurrent sinus infections, bronchitis, pneumonia, allergies and exercise-induced asthma.  After a particularly long chest cold that just would not go away, I returned to the doctor's office to see a physician's assistant who helped me.  He prescribed serevent and flovent (this was before Advair) and I used them for about 6 months.  I could not believe what my lungs cleared themselves of.  

Apparently, in the lower lobes of my lungs, everything was blocked up and I could not get any air around the garbage to get it coughed up and out.  Reducing the inflammation and dilating the airways helped me achieve that and my lungs cleared themselves well.  I was able to go off of the inhalers, though it seems I need to go back on them after a deep chest cold.  I have had FAR fewer serious colds since and they clear up much faster, even if I don't use the inhaler.

After struggling for about two years straight to improve my cardio endurance with no results, going on those inhalers short-term really made a huge difference in what I thought I was going to be stuck with for the rest of my life.

Anyone else have these kind of results from a similar circumstance.


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## Ping898 (Feb 7, 2006)

Shesulsa,

My and my sister's medical history is almost an exact mirror of yours, what helped keep off the asthma attacks are the steroidic daily inhalers (advair), but a really good way we both found to increase our lung capacity was lap swimming.  It made a significant difference enough that when we stopped swimming we noticed a decrease.


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## Lisa (Feb 7, 2006)

Shesulsa,

I grew up with two smokers in the house.  I don't ever remember there not being a blue haze in the room.  I have exercise induced asthma and allergies as well.  I further hurt myself by smoking during my teen years into my college years, where, upon entering nursing school and seeing my first cancerous piece of lung, promptly quit and never turned back.

I used Ventolin for my exercise induced asthma which helps immensely.  My asthma is also triggered by inhaling really cold air, which is prominent here in the winter times.  I have to use my inhaler for that as well.


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## shesulsa (Feb 7, 2006)

Yeah, the cold air does it for me, too.  But either way, with or without the meds, it HURTS my lungs.


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## MartialIntent (Feb 7, 2006)

Shesulsa,
Ever tried the Buteyko Method? Controlled breathing... 

I had fairly serious asthma [near though never hospitalized] since I was a teen - again, like yourself growing up with mum and dad both smoking [my mum died four years ago from lung cancer]. I too have allergies: dust, animals, dairy foods etc etc - the usual stuff. The harder I trained the worse the breathing got - which had me so annoyed I trained harder still so the asthma didn't get the better of me. It always did though! Last spring things came to a head when I collapsed with an attack during training - scary but nothing surprising. As you can guess, this asthma was getting right up the crack of my a*** ['scuse my language!] and I'd had enough. So... 

I bought a load of self-help type books, one of which was on the Buteyko method. Having had the asthma for so many years I was dubious the promises made in the book regarding reducing the need for inhalers etc. could ever be upheld. But it worked - it really did. I started May last year and within two weeks I had *no* need for the Ventolin [previously up to 8 per day] and have since cut the corticosteroids too.

If you haven't tried it, it might be worth a go? Plenty on google if you're interested.

Good luck!


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## Carol (Feb 7, 2006)

I had similar results as well.  I didn't grow up with smokers, but I do have allergies.  I played music professionally when I was younger and I'm sure all the time in smoky nightclubs didn't help.  I started with Ventolin, then added Serevent, then Pulmicourt.  Sometime later the Pulmicourt was swapped with Flovent.   

Flovent gave me some serious side effects...something that eventually needed surgery to fix...I won't go in to details on the board.  After my surgery in 2000, I stopped taking all of my asthma meds.  I actually felt OK.

I have also found that lap swimming has been a big help.  I try to keep that up as much as I can.  Until this case of bronchitis which knocked the bejeezus, I had gone for 3 years straight without any respiratory infections at all.  The difference this year I think is that I haven't had a flu shot in two seasons.


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