can non-acute asthma cause chronic shortness of breath?

[marissamm]

hi kathy, i have severe asthma too, ask your doctor for a nebulizer, it will help and also ask him for a xolair injection monthly it helps me tremendously,ask him for singulair as well it will help with allergies,and last but not least ask him if he thinks you could benefit from pulmonary rehab i start rehab on tuesday,they teach you how to breathe while you walk etc, i am trying to do all that will help with my severe asthma because it gets tiring when you cant' breathe right. keep me posted.

[marissamm]

ps. kathy when you inhale advair you are supposed to rinse out your mouth and gargle every time with water it will prevent mouth infections.

[wxKathy2]

Hi Marissamm,
Thanks for all that info - I knew about the mouth infection thing and didn't like the way my mouth felt with advair so they switched it to asmanex....I've tried it two nights now - still rinsing and brushing afterward....they did put me on singulair and I have albuterol inhaler to take as needed....it does help but makes me feel jittery and sick....I can ask about the shots....the rehab sounds useful because for awhile I was hyperventilating and I'm not sure yet, but I think I might need to "retrain" my breathing.....thanks for telling me about all that - it gives me more options....they are still going to check my heart with heart cath because of the sob so I have to get that out of the way - but then we'll see...
Thanks so much -
Best wishes,
Kathy

[marissamm]

did u have a pft yet if so what did your fev1 read?

[wxKathy2]

I did have a pft - two in fact....and a methacholine challenge.....the fev1 says 2.25? does that sound like the number you are asking about? I only have the report from the first test - I need to get a copy from the second test and methacholine challenge.....they told me during the challenge that after three doses of methacholine I had dropped over 20%......so they said I had asthma....