Asthma is a disease that affects the Respiratory System. The air passages to the lugs are blocked and the person has a hard time breathing. Severe asthma attacks can block the air passages completely leading to respiratory arrest if they go untreated. People diagnosed with asthma can be treated and live a normal life. They have to take preventive medication every day and take small precautions to avoid asthma flare ups but the fact is that more than twenty million people live with asthma daily in the USA and six million of these are children.
All these people go about their business daily, they go to school, work, play, they lead normal lives in much the same manner everybody else does. The only difference is that they have to take medication every day, which prevents their asthma from flaring up. They all use different kinds of medication taken in pills or inhalers, nothing fancy, nothing strange. They also have to take some precautions while going out at night and during cold weather so as to not induce an asthma attack. They must also stay away from food, and other elements that they are allergic to, this fact is determined by exhaustive allergy testing.
Asthma and exercise are still a controversy. Studies have shown that many athletes, including professional athletes suffer from asthma and it does not affect their performance while playing. Many regular people who like sports and exercise go to gymnasiums and exercise to their hearts content too. Some doctors claim that exercise especially strenuous exercise will cause the asthma to flare up and attack. Exercises like running, football, soccer, basketball, exercises that require continuous movement, exercises that require strength are believed by some doctors will cause an attack, in fact they believe that a person who has asthma does not have the same ability and resistance that a normal person does.
Other doctors believe that exercise is necessary for the asthma patient. They believe that exercise expands the size of your lungs and allows your lungs to take in more air. A programmed, gradually increasing plan is necessary to do this, and mane doctors will design this plan for the person and encourage him to follow it. This does not mean that they will eventually substitute their medication with exercise and the asthma will go away. No, asthma can’t be cured, only prevented from flaring up.
Exercise during an asthma attack, mild or severe is out of the question. It is even dangerous because the blood pressure is up and the body is burning calories but the lungs are not receiving enough air to feed the body and allow it to process all this burnt energy. Exercise at this time may increase the symptoms and escalate the attack into a greater danger and greater consequences. If an attack happens while exercising, it does not mean that the exercise provoked it, allergens and other circumstances provoke asthma, and there are no records or studies that indicate that exercise or exertion produces asthma.
Great athletes have suffered from it, even Olympic Champions have. There are no records or studies that indicate that exercise produces asthmatic reactions. Moderate exercise is recommended when starting but once the person has created and gotten used to an exercise routine, he or she should have no problems with his or her asthma.