Asthma & Exercise: Managing Asthma While Exercising

Some people with asthma avoid activity for one reason or another. But there are also individuals with asthma who want to stay active and exercise, including athletes who want to compete at a high level.

However, they must be careful. As many as 90 percent of all people who have asthma will experience symptoms of exercise-induced asthma during exercise, according to the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America.

Asthma is an inflammation of the passageways of the lungs. Because of abnormally high sensitivity to triggers such as cold air, dust mites, tobacco smoke, pollen, animal dander or other irritants in the environment, these airways start to contract, causing coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath and tightness in the chest. These triggers combined with exercise, which causes you to breathe faster and deeper due to the increased oxygen demands of your body, can lead to problems.

Dr. Lyndsi Davenport, a primary care physician with the Ascension Genesys Downtown Flint Health Center offers the following tips for managing asthma while exercising:

1. Devote at least 10 minutes for warming up and 10 minutes for cooling down. This allows the bronchial tubes to adjust.
2. Drink plenty of fluids.
3. If you experience breathing or other problems while exercising, don't try to work through them.
4. Following your clinician’s advice, make preventive use of long-acting and/or short-term inhalers or other medications.
5. Avoid exercising in cold, dry air or in smoggy conditions. Air pollution and a high pollen count also increase the risk of exercise-induced asthma.

The Ascension Genesys Downtown Flint Health Center is a fully functioning clinic boasting services for pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, general surgery, podiatry, and gastroenterology.

Dr. Davenport is accepting new patients. Call (810) 232-3522 for more information or to schedule an appointment today.