Asthma??

[nalla]

Hi, I'm a 29 year old women. About 5 years ago I had gone to the Dr. for shortness of breath, he said I had asthma. I was put on cingular and advair. It seemed to help. Well 2 years ago I got pregnant and got off my medication. During the pregnancy all my symptoms went away and have stayed away sinse, well so I thought. But what I'm experiancing now isn't exactly like I had before. When I'm doing normal house cleaning, any kind of excersise, walking, I get this pain in my chest and it's hard to breath. I don't gasp for air like I did before. My breath is just really shallow. I don't do any wheezing or coughing. sometimes the only way I can take a full breath is when I make myself yawn. I don't wake up coughing. Does this really sound like asthma, or could it be something else? I always thought that when you have astham you HAVE to wheeze and cough. I don't do any of those. And from what I have read about asthma, I didn't see anything about chest pain. Should I start taking my meds again or consider this maybe being something else?
Thanks for your input

[Jane1]

Hi

As an Asthmatic, I can only give you my history in relation to this.  When I was first diagnosed it was a wheeze, my medication was increased when I took up smoking ( I know madness) but I always associated a bad attack with wheezing and rattling.  When I gave up smoking, the asthma was more silent, like your situation, I would get out of breath after a walk, I would hyperventolate and have to yawn a lot.  I don't know if my Asthma changed, but the sneakiness of it sometimes made the attacks worse.  However, I have capitalised on that now, and try not to get too emotional when I feel a hyper/ asthma attack coming on.  However I feel you should be assesed again, now you are getting different symptoms with asthma, a PFT would tell you how your breathing is.  

Also on the point of needing to yawn a lot, a found breathing into a brown paper bag very helpful in this situation.  
Because you know the feeling, sometimes I can't catch the yawn and it can tire me out so much, feels like my chest is caving in!!

all the best
J

[Cirila]

I have asthma as well, and it came back after 15 years. In the beginning I wasn't sure if I was having asthma because I did'n have any whezing and also instead of getting an acute asthma attack, it was more like a constant shortness of breath. this would get worse after exercise, specially the days after I was exercising.
I've talked to many different doctors, trying to convince them that it was some other respiratory problem but most of them told me that asthma symptoms are not the same on everyone and probably my asthma has mutated to a different type that's why is no exactly the same as what it used to be 15 years ago.
Probably you are having exercise induce asthma or also you could be allergic to the cleaning products you are using. I usually get short of breath and cough with strong smells like perfums, cleaning products, etc.
Have you tried using a peak flow meter to check your breathing?
The only thing that doesn't sound like asthma to me is your chest pain but that is because I never feel that.