Nightwalker

Im looking for help & advice on my breathing problems, I appreciate it greatly if you take the time to read. I've had breathing problems for what could be 4-5 years now. My problem isn't regular or consistent, so hasn't yet impacted my life greatly, but it does get me down and I think in the long-run it will degrade my life.

Symptoms:
Currently I have breathing troubles when exercising in cold environments. I thought it might of been when cold got to my chest when exercising but its not, I can have many layers on keeping my chest warm but if the air I'm breathing in is really cold and I'm exercising it will affect my breathing badly, my chest gets very weisey, and I feel like I cant get enough oxygen in; hard to breath. Asthma you might think? Sounds like it but I don't think it is, well I it might be but in conjunction with something else? I'm not sure, please read on...
BTW, The problem used to happen (when it first started like 4 years ago) when I just laid in bed, but that has stopped now.

History:
From a young lad (all through teens) I was a healthy, tall, strong and fit build lad, enjoyed sports (Rugby, Cornish Wrestling & Kayaking) played Rugby regularly and even made County level for two years. However I stopped Rugby for two reasons, 1. Breathing problems (which led to a bit of depression because I felt I couldn't perform and do what I wanted to) and 2. Generally loosing interest in the sport somewhat. I used to go out running to keep fit etc. but this stopped aswell as the rugby due to the breathing problems stopping me.

Obviously at this point (3-4 years ago now) I was going to & thro seeing my local GP trying to locate the issue. I had dozens of appointments I was sent away for two weeks & told to log my lung capacity into a book using a device. Two weeks later she conclued my lung-capacity was superb & healthy, I think this made her doubt it was asthma. I had so many appointments and never seemed to get anywhere, I was greatly annoyed and depressed that sometimes my GP would seemingly have no clue of my case the next time I saw her, even if it was just a week on and I would have to explain the long story of problems, symptoms and increasing depression to her yet again and again. Anyway, she came to another conclusion at one point that it must be a dust allergy, because another bad symptom I had at that time was that I would get the same breathing-difficulty whilst lying down and trying to sleep. That was weird, I'd do nothing, no strenuous exercise, nothing, just lie down to sleep and it would start, so they tested for chest infections, wasn't that, dust allergy.. well.. they recommended that I clean and rearrange my room in certain ways, buy a special hover etc. I personally couldn't believe the dust-allergy thing for two reasons: 1. My mother had a strong cleaning obsession; surfaces in my bedroom were cleaned, wiped/disinfected daily or every-other-day. Secondly; the breathing issue first started and consistently happened whilst out in the open when doing strenuous exercise, either on the Rugby pitch or out on the trail running, in what I would consider to be an almost dust free environment. Next my GP tried to blame it on stress, which was rubbish, yes I was down and a little stressed at times, but this was due to the breathing problem itself! So wouldnt have started it. And ironically at that time, it was happening when I would lay down to sleep, happening at the least stressful time.

Next up they had me doing some breathing tests with some strange gasses, I think one was green! I think those test's determined that it was not asthma. The next appointment she told me that they really didn't know what the problem was and they were just going to do a normal X-Ray to see if anything abnormal would show up, she said she didnt expect it to show anything, but what hell she was going to put me through it anyway. I went for the X-Ray appointment and then I gave up, never returned to the doctors and have never been back in 4 years or so. At that point in my life I was so angry, annoyed at myself for this problem, the GP, I was depressed and gave up Rugby, because I could no longer do what I loved at the time, my life was changing and I choose to ignore the problem as best I could. Oh and that blew my teenage dreams of joining the Royal Marines clear out of the water.

I would say the problem now is less severe, I never get the breathing issue when laying down to bed, the problem is now purely when I exercise and the air I breathe in is cold. Literally I can jog miles on a summer's day no problem, yet yesterday I couldn't even jog 350 meters before I had to stop because of severe breathing-problems.

Now get this.. during the extensive visits to and thro the doctors years ago we established that the brown inhaler dosent nothing to help the condition, the blue inhaler does help when I'm having difficulty, my GP played-down that fact saying that just because it helps it dosent mean it is asthma, because apparently the blue-inhaler merely widens and opens up your breathing pathways in general, so it would ease any breathing problem somewhat and after the gas-breathing and lung-capacity tests she already determined it wasn't asthma, so whats the deal? Its not diagnosed and its effecting my life badly now.

I still do Cornish Wrestling during the summer and can perform fine then (in the warm), but I cannot exercise in the cold. According to BMI I'm 'obese' I would say I'm a tall muscular build (5 foot 10, 17 stone). I'm trying to exercise more to loose some weight, but its Winter here right now and its just getting colder and colder, its impossible for me to exercise outside and its soon gona get me down. I used to be a member of my local gym, but can no longer afford that subscription, I thought of an exercise bike inside my flat, I could exercise in the warm, it would be ideal, but I really don't have the space for one.

I would love to have the problem diagnosed and say oh yes you can fix the problem by doing this, but I realise I shouldn't't expect a miracle like that. I would just love just to know what the hell is wrong with me, even if it couldn't be resolved.

Thanks for your time and I'd appreciate any comments/ideas,

Ashley.