Good morning,

I'm not new to the message boards, but I am new to this one. Yesterday I was diagnosed with asthma. I was given 2 inhalers - albuterol and flovent. I've had the albuterol inhaler since last year at this time when I came down with a cold and had trouble getting over it. I'm scheduled Monday for pulmonary tests at the hospital. Does anyone know what these tests may consist of?

I'm not surprised I was diagnosed. I've been having symptoms that have been much worse the last 3 weeks for so - waking up at night having difficulty breathing, sporadic breathing problems during the day, having to use the albuterol several times a day, tightness in my chest and the base of my throat.

God bless, Jen

Hi Jen,
My name is Cindy and I have asthma also. I was diagnosed with adult asthma at the age of 45. Mine is allergy induced. I have always been plagued with hayfever, sinsus etc. ... Your test is very simple. I have had several lung function tests. They basically have you blow very hard and very fast through a tube that is connected to a computerized machine. They have you do this 3 times. Then they have you use an inhaler, wait about 10 minutes and do the same test again to see if there is any improvement. This will tell them whether or not the albuteral or bronchodialator is working. Usually with asthma there is a significant improvement upon using the medication. Is your asthma allergy related? Does your inhaler work that they gave you last year? I take Advair on a daily basis (inhaled steroid) and that pretty much keeps me from having to use my albuteral. But the tests are simple and noninvasive. Good luck!

Hi Jen. Sorry that you have to deal with this. I've had asthma I believe my whole life but was dianosed around 12 (I'm 28 now). It runs in my family so I wasn't surprised. The flovent should help you from getting as many flare ups and the albuterol is the standard quick releif inhailer. My allergies/asthma is always worse this time of year due to the mold outside etc. The tests that you will take are probably standard PFT tests (pulmanary function tests) where you will get a tube to breathe into and the tube will hook into a computer. The doctor/technician will ask you to blow really hard and hold it for x number of seconds and the computer will chart out how your lungs are reacting. It really isn't painful and should last no more than an hour most likely. It's unfortunate that so many people now a days has asthma but fortunately there are lots of medications that can make it manageable for you.

Also, if you are waking up at night gasping for air and you are tired during the day and/or feel like you have been ran over by a truck in the morning you could have sleep apnea in conjunction with the asthma...just a thought worth checking into if you have any of the other symptoms.

God Bless,
Amanda

Amanda,
I just finished reading your post about your lung function test. You were saying that they had you blow very hard and then hold it. I have had several PFTs and have never had to hold my breath. I am now wondering if my techs new what they were doing?
Cindy

Hi Amanda and Cindy,
Thank you both for your posts. I had the PFT on Monday. It was an easy test, took about 1/2 hour. I had to do several breathing tests: breathe in as far as I could, then exhale quickly as much as I could; panting; normal breathing; breathe in and hold for 30 seconds; then repeat after using Albuterol. The tech showed me the charts and I'm off from the normal just a bit.

She did mention another test, something that begins with an M. They give you this med that induces an asthma attack. If the patient has asthma, it triggers it; if not, it doesn't.

As for my symptoms, I think they are allergy related and activity related. I've never been one to be physical in sports because it was hard for me to have endurance. When I dust or clean in a dirty area, I have trouble breathing and end up coughing and needing to sit down for a while until I get my breath back - being unable to take a really deep breath.

I'll get some answers by the end of the week and then find out what's next.

God bless, Jen

Jen,
I'm glad your tests went well. What they had you do sounds exactly what I had to do. I also did have the 2nd one when I was younger.

Cindy,
My doc was a lung specialist. They did not make me hold my breath...I probably just worded it incorrectly. They made me blow really hard like when you do a peakflow test and basically empty my lungs of air for a certain amount of time. It was more like on the count of three blow as hard as you can for x amount of seconds. Sometimes it was maybe for a minuite which seemed like a really long time and was like holding your breath because you were out of air and couldn't blow anymore. When you are getting a PFT test done there are what they call PFTs w/o resistance & PFTs with resistance. You may want to look up the two to see which one you had as the one I had may have been different. When a doc writes a script to have this done at a hospital (which I have also had done) they have to specify which they want.