Hi c/Running,

I would like some advice on how to overcome/circumvent asthma-induced pain, while running.

I’m an avid runner, but I struggle with asthma for which I do take well-adjusted medication. I have difficulty running more than a couple minutes at a time. Whenever I start running, my lungs quickly begin to hurt (it’s not my sides, my muscles could do so much more, but it’s actually my lungs hurting), the pain becoming so bad, that I have to pause for more than five minutes after just two, three minutes of running. It takes between 20 to 30 minutes of this stop-and-go to finally “acclimate” myself enough to be able to run normally. As you can imagine, this can get very annoying and frustrating and makes running with a group nearly impossible.

On a side-note: When I am running outside, I experience this no matter which season it is or where I am running (forest, urban, field), but when I am running on a treadmill at the gym, I usually don’t experience it so severely. Maybe something with the AC?

  1. Do You have similar experiences and can You share what helped you?

  2. What can I do to reduce the time it takes me to start-up?

  3. What can I do to have no/less asthma-induced pain, when starting to run?

  4. What kind of training schedule would you recommend for people with asthma? Are normal training schedules just stretched out regarding the increases in intensity over time or do I need a completely different approach?

Thank You for any advice on the matter!

    • Arxir@lemmy.worldOP
      0·
      3 years ago

      Thank you for taking the time to troubleshoot this with me!

      I do not do breathing exercises, never considered doing some tbh. I usually just immediately run with no warm-up. I remember having had less to no problems with my asthma during runs, when I was younger, thus I have an image of a normal way to run, which is modeled after my young adulthood. That is probably one of my mistakes now that I am older.

      The lung pain occurs in the lower lungs and doesn’t happen in other situations than running/jogging/sprinting.

      Humidity might be a possibility, but I have the same problem during high summer as well as deep winter. I live in a temperate climate zone.

      Your questions bring back an idea that I had some time ago, which was, that I might not use my full lung volume, when breathing normally, and that, when I am running, I might take deeper breaths accessing the lower lung volume, where the inflammation of the asthma may be more severe (?) thus causing pain? Unfortunately I do not remember if a gasping breath didn’t reduce/alleviate the pain or if I just didn’t find this the right way to breath, when running.

      Jogging slower helps, but I think, that is more due to me breathing more normally.

      Your approach makes me want to measure the on-set, frequency and context of my asthma pain during runs and come back to you in a couple months to share my insights with you! :D