So yesterday I took a nice hot bath, followed by a shower just to rinse off...and after all that, I was quite short of breath and feeling tight in my chest. Why? Someone said it might have been the humidity...so, does that mean I should avoid hot tubs, hot showers/baths, saunas, steam rooms, etc...from now on?
Humidity actually helps my asthma. I know it harms some people though. My doctor actually tells me to take hot showers when I'm doing poorly. It sounds like you may be one of the people it harms, in which cause I would recommend taking your rescue inhaler before you participate in activities where steam may be involved.
Hmmm...so it's good for some people, and affects some people in a negative way? Interesting... Well, I'm going to the doctor tomorow, so I'll probably bring it up and ask him. :-)
I looked into this a little more and found that steam will help your breathing if it's tight because of congestion, like in the cause of an infection. It will make your breathing worse however if your breathing problems are because of swelling, like in asthma. It made my breathing better when I had bronchitis.
