Websnark

Comment from: Zaq posted at August 29, 2005 12:50 PM

This post gave me a total flashback to, oh, eighth grade or so, when I was finally diagnosed with ADD, simultaneously explaining and treating what had plagued my school experiences since, well, forever. It was indeed great to finally get some help for it, but I definitely understand the sentiment... it's so obvious! Why couldn't we have done something about this, oh, six or seven years ago? (Or however long it happens to be in your case.)

So yeah, I definitely understand the sentiment. But at least it's theoretically better NOW.

Comment from: Charlie Lewis posted at August 29, 2005 12:53 PM

My wife struggled with asthma most of her life (funny thing, she only used her inhaler once while she was pregnant and hasn't used it since - our daughter is almost 16 months old). As a kid, her gym coach always accused her of being lazy and not trying hard enough - even when she was turning blue from lack of oxygen. So, no, it might not have been different.

But I'm glad you know what it is NOW and can move forward.

Comment from: Wednesday posted at August 29, 2005 2:56 PM

(Or however long it happens to be in your case.)

If I'm remembering the first collapse right, roughly twenty years.

Comment from: Matt Sweeney posted at August 29, 2005 3:25 PM

There is a concept in music where what is not played is as important as what is played. One of the best examples in Western music is folks like Thelonious Monk, who had a habit of playing two notes, which served to imply a third note. The idea is tossed around too much these days, but when it is done right, it can really work.

This essay made me think of that. We seem to come into the piece after it has started and must infer what is being talked about from the context provided.

It is an interesting counter-point to Eric's writing, which is mostly self contained.

Anyways, I have a cold and really shouldn't have come to work today, but that's me. In my spacey state I really like this. So, I thought I'd post.

Comment from: kirabug posted at August 29, 2005 5:44 PM

It's the borderline cases of anything that are enough to drive a person crazy. I mean hell, everyone knows my cousin's allergic to shellfish - all he has to do is touch a shrimp and his hand swells up like a balloon. But my sister, who gets queasy if she drinks a glass of milk can't get anyone to say one way or another if it's an allergy. Will it kill her, even if it is? Doubtful, because she's learned to work around it. But damn, it's nice when the things you've suffered all your life actually have names.

"You'll know it's asthma if you can't breathe at all." "Well yes, but I'd rather it never got that bad in the first place."

For me, it was a might-be-asthma-might-be-anxiety-attacks sydrome that struck in college. I haven't used my inhaler for years, but nobody's asked me to run across campus in 10 minutes for class either.

Anna Nalick sometimes ticks me off. "Just breathe" my ass. If it were that easy, respiratory therapy wouldn't exist.

Glad you're breathing better today - hope it stays that way - and the anger is totally justifiable.

Comment from: larksilver posted at August 29, 2005 6:10 PM

My stepson has asthma. For him, trying harder makes it WORSE.

In fact, the best thing to ensure that he can get up, breathe again, and go play, is to chill out, to slow down a minute, and to just concentrate on letting the air flow. (NOT to force it, just to get out of its way). Cause, y'see, when he's attacking, he's also freakin' out.

First time I sat with him through an attack at 2:00 AM, and made him look at me, breathe with me, and calm down from the (totally understandable!) freaking out that was further inhibiting his airflow... well, that was the first time that kid didn't hate me. But that's another story. Apparently, I was the first person in his life who didn't freak out when he had an attack, treated it like it was just a part of life, and walked him through the steps to let the airways open back up. "Wow!" he said later, when he could breathe again. "I don't think I've ever had an attack and just gone back to bed later. My mom always made me stay up for a while, and then miss school.. just in case." sheesh, no wonder the poor kid's a bit.. er.. dramatic. yeah. Don't get me wrong, the time or two that the attacks were BAD, and the breathing wasn't clear in the AM, he stayed home. Duh. But really, the kid sometimes faked attacks, and was astonished when I could tell the difference between "I can't breathe" wheezing and "I'm making sounds so you won't make me pick up my bedroom" wheezing. Of course, if you've enough air to get mad and YELL at me when I say "well, if you're having an attack, I guess you can't go play with Eusenio and Gavin, since you can't breathe".. well, you're probably faking the attack. hehehe.

Any idiot who thinks that asthma is just a case of not trying hard enough, etc... well, doesn't deserve to have a job where kids' futures.. nay, their lives.. are in their hands. Ever.

Comment from: SeanH posted at August 29, 2005 6:26 PM

It only took me a few years to be diagnosed... well, diagnosed is the wrong word, isn't it? For them to figure out that I was something other than just generally troublesome and malicious. I'm quite quiet, now.

Comment from: Tangent posted at August 29, 2005 6:26 PM

I've a roommate with bad asthma. And he works in shipping. Go figure. *shakes head sadly*

There's a lot of idiot doctors out there. They think they know everything. They think that their degree makes them God, and thus they always know what's right and what's the best and all that. And you know? They're human. They make mistakes. And they fail to listen because of that God-complex so many of them have.

Personally I don't trust Doctors as far as I can toss them, and I am physically weak (and out of shape).

Rob

Comment from: UrsulaV posted at August 29, 2005 7:31 PM

I'm lucky--while they thought I might have asthma for a bit as a kid, it was quickly figured out that what I had was fairly brutal hayfever. It's never cleared up, and I pretty much can't ever go to Southern California again, but I can control it with drugs--and I was, obviously, pretty lucky, since nobody ever told me that I just needed to try harder. The notion boggles the mind.

Comment from: miyaa posted at August 29, 2005 8:06 PM

So this must be "Admit your physical and mental shortcomings week."

I too have asthma. And allergies. I did not have it identified until my freshman year of college when I was having trouble breathing, and as I passed a fairly large puddle on my way to the Student Health Center nearly two miles from where my student dorm was I noticed my face had turned blue.

Turned blue!

It also has been a hinderance to starting an exercise program. (You want me to run, and breathe in quicker, when I can't breathe very well? Right...) I've eventually figured out how to exercise without exerting my lungs too harshly.

It turns out I'm allergic to corn. I'm cool with that. If it were dairy products though, that would be a problem.

Comment from: Wednesday posted at August 29, 2005 8:17 PM

Several years ago, I figured out that the three best ways to get exercise out of me (other than placing me in a situation where I can walk to and from someplace for half an hour at a stretch without fear for my life) were to:

* put me in a pool by myself so that no one can laugh at me
* make me lift or pull on heavy things
* leave me alone in a room with some sort of nifty gadget (e.g. ball, elliptical machine, rowing machine)

So, basically, if you can't see me to explain to me why I suck, I get alone fine at my own pace. (The gym usually counts for the same reason that no one else exists in such environments as public transportation or men's urinals. There is an invisibility field. It rocks.)

Comment from: Wednesday posted at August 29, 2005 8:21 PM

And, while we're on The Week of Personal Suction: also allergies to dust, mold, pollen, most cat hair/dander, possibly horse dander, and one relatively common spice. Furthermore, I am the girl who sucks, plus I got depression. (Dear Mr. Onstad: please, please, PLEASE make this shirt. I will buy this shirt. Somehow.)

Comment from: Arra posted at August 29, 2005 8:23 PM

Now, setting aside my own experiences with asthma . . . this is just plain good writing.

The reason everyone is responding with their own personal experience is BECAUSE this is good writing. It clicks for us. We feel your pain. Good show.

Stuff like this is why I come keep coming back to Websnark.

Comment from: roninkakuhito posted at August 29, 2005 8:45 PM

Yay for a correct diagnosis!
Are you going to be taking meds or just relying on the rescue inhaler when you have an attack? (Personally, I hope you medicate, since it is way less bad for you than ever having to use the rescue inhaler, but some people don't want the pills.)

Good luck either way.

Comment from: kirabug posted at August 29, 2005 8:50 PM

Wednesday mentioned:

So, basically, if you can't see me to explain to me why I suck, I get alone fine at my own pace.

This is why we dropped they money for an elliptical trainer this summer instead of for a gym membership. Well, that, and I have a better chance of getting my husband on the elliptical even when he's feeling like crap.

Comment from: Cadete posted at August 29, 2005 10:17 PM

Excellent writting once again, Wednesday. Plus, it made me understand better my mother. Since I won't be the first to discuss a personal situation in here and I have the advantage that none of you knows me or my mother and that you probably don't even care, I'll explain myself.

Sometime around the time my sister was born (1990, if I'm not mistaken) my mother started to feel unwell. Sometimes she had a bad tought or some pain in her lungs. She also started to lose weight at an allarming rate.

My mother isn't exactly an unneducated woman, she had a degree in Biology, a Masters in Biochemistry and was working on her Ph.D on rubisco activity on plants with a C4 photosyntesis (yes, I am very proud of her) and she thought that all her symptons pointed to tuberculosis. This was promptly refused by the doctors, as that disease had been erradicated from Portugal and it wouldn't return, especially in a person who had the quality of life she had.

The doctors couldn't say what was going on. Worse, they suggested, even said it plainly, that the problem existed only in her head. I should mention that she at a certain point weighted only thirty kilograms, hardly healthy... Needless to say, she was feeling depressed as well as unhealthy. Not that she speaks much about it now, but when you hear her say that she at some point thought about forgeting about her Ph.D because she probably wouldn't have enough time left to finish it, you get the idea.

Eventually, she did went to a shrink, convinced by all the denying around her that the problem really was in her mind. It was he who told her that while she did have some "monkeys in the attic", to use the same phrase, that was something all of us have and that she did have a serious health problem.

Some time later she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and after treatment, returned to a healthy state (she now considers herself slightly fat) in time to return to her Ph.D work and finish it before the deadline.

It is now only a bad memory, but to think it could have been treated much sooner is as infuriating as what Wednesday felt. The difference is that she put it in words much better than me.

Comment from: miyaa posted at August 29, 2005 10:22 PM

Have you or Eric considered Yourself!Fitness? It's a exercise video game for XBox, PS2, and PC that is customized for your weight, sex, and perferences. It has like 500 exercises and about 5,000 recipies. It's like $29 for PC, and $34 for XBox or PS2. I'm not sure how you're suppose to exercise and use the controller at the same time though.

Comment from: Wednesday posted at August 29, 2005 10:30 PM

I don't have an Xbox. I'm extremely unlikely to have an Xbox. So it probably wouldn't work.

I tried DDR and it broke my head completely in a most unpleasant fashion, so such a thing would worry the heck out of me.

Really, the best thing in my case is some combination of heavy weightlifting and Pilates. I need a dang gym again. *sigh*

Comment from: Cathowl posted at August 29, 2005 10:42 PM

I don't have asthma, but I too have encountered "you're not trying hard enough".

I have Asperger's disorder. It's an autism-spectrum disorder. Basically, high-functioning autism. I only got diagnosed a couple years ago, at 17 or 18. After going through most of my schooling being told "you're not trying hard enough", and "I know you can do this, why won't you?" and "I thought you were smart enough to get this!". It's very painful. It's very angering, and sad. And it's nice to know other people understand the feeling.

Comment from: unholygoddess posted at August 29, 2005 11:26 PM

I've had asthma since I was six years old. I have never had an asthma attack, and I dont normally wheeze or experience shortness of breath. But when I get sick, I get really goddamned sick. The coughing is enough to wake up the entire house, I really *cant* breathe unless Im sitting up (makes for fun sleeping), and Im like this for a solid five to seven days. Mind you, I cant run without getting short of breath (never could), but I learned that its easier not to do that.

Now, at 24, I experience less symptoms since I've stopped taking daily medication. Funny how that works, eh?

Comment from: Thomas Blight posted at August 30, 2005 12:56 AM

Seeing all of the posts about people's conditions makes me feel guilty I don't have one. (Well, I could, but not a major one)

The closest thing I have to a condition is I get light migraines. Very infrequent ones. I had one today, and I believe the last one was at least a year ago.

Really, all I get is a bit of nausea, photophobia and phonophobia. Sometimes I vomit. (vomiting instantly makes the migraine go away)

Now I can see, I'm damn lucky.

Comment from: Meagen Image posted at August 30, 2005 4:24 AM

I've always found I tire very quickly. In gym classes, after doing all the warm-up excercises, I just had to sit down for a moment and catch my breath. The coach was always very nice about it, and once I rested a bit, I could usually tackle the excercises themselves with success. (I was one of the best jumpers in the group.)

I didn't think much about it. I was a geek, after all, I didn't do any sports at all unless you count some casual bike riding. And I always needed a Coke in the morning to function properly - well, again, geek.

Then in my last year of high school, there was a blood donation drive. Being 18, I decided to sign up. Step 1 was to get my blood pressure measured.

...and the guy tells me "I'm sorry, miss, your blood pressure is too low. If we took any blood from you you'd probably faint."

So I didn't get to give any blood that day (and I didn't get the free chocolate... grr). But you know, the low blood pressure thing? It explains a *lot*.

Comment from: Chaomancer Omega posted at August 30, 2005 5:01 AM

I've been there.



I've always had allergies, and always had at least a touch of asthma, even from birth. When I was three, the allergies led to a sinus infection that went unchecked long enough (thanks to incompetent pediatricians) that it actually did some lasting damage. Ever since, I've had bad asthma and chronic sinusitis. (You know the congestion and that "special" headache you have when you have a cold? I'm like that all the time.) Throw in the problem of my lungs just not being big enough (my skeletal structure by itself weighs about what my lungs are big enough to support) and it can be a bit rough at times.



I've dealt with the problem of people not comprehending it my whole life. One gym teacher wasn't convinced until an asthma attack took place in his class (up until then, he had thought asthma was a myth). And I had to fight school administrators the whole way to be able to keep my inhaler with me. Standard school procedure was to have any medicines with the school nurse, and these people whose job was to teach kids to think couldn't get it through their heads that if I had a bad attack I wouldn't have the time or the ability to get to the nurse. When I got into high school, I just took my medicines with me and never bothered telling the administration about them to begin with; I felt it would be easier to ask forgiveness than permission if the situation came up. And I willfully sloughed off any strenuous activity in gym class; my feeling was that the gym teachers didn't have the right to complain until they had tried to go through a normal day with only 75% of normal lung capacity.



Doctors, of course, are a whole other story. I have finally managed to get an allergy/asthma specialist who both knows what she's doing and knows that she doesn't know everything, which is a big help. On occasion I've had to go to other doctors because she was out of town, or because I was between insurance and had to rely on the Indian Health Center, and other doctors, well... are idiots. They may be perfectly bright people, but unless they're willing to acknowledge that I might know something about the conditions I've lived with my entire life, they are idiots in that particular case.



I know that while nasal sprays help many peoples' allergies, they don't help me, and in fact make my nose bleed. But every time I'm dealing with a new doctor, I have to go through the whole rigamarole again with them. I know that the most important thing I can do in an attack is to not panic. I know when I can control an attack without medicine (seldom, but it happens), when I need albuterol, and when I need to go to the emergency room. But I always have to explain to the nurses there how I know it's an asthma attack. You'd think they'd realize that after more than two decades, I'd recognize the symptoms.



And I also know when it isn't just a normal asthma attack. Three times in the past few years, I've had my ability to breathe in one lung shut down completely. Just like flipping off a light switch. No warning, no apparent provocation. And it didn't respond to medication; it just after a minute or two started getting air again just as sudden as it had stopped. I'm not afraid of asthma attacks; I'm used to them enough to give them a healthy respect but to take them in stride. But that scared me each time it happened; the inability to get air or control it, and the excruciating pain were like asthma taken to the next level. And the doctors don't yet know what it was; the asthma specialist even called in a pulmonologist to take a look at me, but he wasn't able to figure it out either. And that bothers me... but what can I do? Just keep living my life and hope they figure it out before it happens again.



Most people seem to be sympathetic when it comes to my breathing problems; they won't smoke around me, they'll let me take a breather when I need to, and so forth. But even with the sympathetic ones, I don't think they really understand. I've gotten into the habit of explaining it to them as being like how it would feel if the strongest person you know were to give you the hardest bear hug they could, without any concern for your safety. Those of you who have had an asthma attack know that isn't really an adequate explanation, but it's the closest I can come to it. And that other thing? Well, imagine a pair of pliers closing off your main bronchial tube.



So as soon as I get a job that offers medical insurance again, I'll be going back to see the asthma specialist and the pulmologist to see what can be figured out, and to get an exercise plan. I'm not very overweight; in fact, I'm fairly sure that if I were to exercise, I'd just be replacing what excess fat I have with a corresponding amount of muscle. (I walk regularly, and can outpace most people I know; just can't run more than 10 feet.) But the doctors have indicated before that upper body exercises could help strengthen my lungs so that they can support a larger frame than they otherwise would. So even though I know I'd probably get exhausted by it before finishing two reps in the beginning, that's what I plan on doing. Because the stronger I can get my lungs to be, the better.



...Heh. Didn't mean for this post to get this long or this personal. Ah well. I'm glad your doctors gave you a correct diagnosis, Wednesday. Sorry you have to deal with asthma, but glad you at least know that's what you're dealing with now. (And a belated congratulations to Eric on the weight loss as well; I know it can't have been easy, but I can tell you feel it's very worth it.)

Comment from: UrsulaV posted at August 30, 2005 9:13 AM

Hey, Thomas, migraines are hardly a lightweight condition! Particularly if they include nausea--my mother once became so dehydrated from a migraine that included vomiting that we found her passed out in the bathroom and had to rush her to the emergency room for bag after bag of fluid. Scary stuff!

I'm very lucky in that regard in that when I do get them, I tend to get the migraine-with-aura and all the funky visual distortions, but only rarely do I get the pain, and I get fewer and fewer of those as I age. (And owing to my misspent youth, I am an old hand at navigating through a visually distorted world...) But having had one of two of the railroad-spike-in-the-eye variety, I can't imagine being violently ill through a headache like that--my sympathy! Eep!

Comment from: sfreese posted at August 30, 2005 12:48 PM

Really a well-written piece. That sinking feeling in your stomach when you realize the breath won't come, combined with all the frustration, and a peak flow of 180--yikes. I'm glad you're feeling better. I've been an asthmatic my whole life, so I've never really had to struggle with a misdiagnosis, although I could go on for a while about the horrors of medical insurance companies in the US (but I won't). I do feel fortunate that inhalers actually exist--as a young child I had to carry around liquid medication in case of an asthma attack. And there were no plastic bottles, so I had to carry small glass ones, and I can tell you they broke more than once. There are those powder disk inhaler things now, but give me a good old-fashioned ozone-endangering aerosol inhaler--I won't go anywhere without it. :-)

Comment from: Adrean posted at August 31, 2005 6:01 PM

I finally got fed up with five years of ineffective doctors and went to a chiropractor/naturopathy doctor. By the first appointment he found that I have a dairy allergy, a serious yeast overgrowth, and other things.

I don't have asthma but have been plagued with fatigue and weird sicknesses for years and it felt soooooo good to finally NOT be crazy! After a diet change and supplements I feel great. It's still a long process of healing but at least there's that validation.

I guess the moral of the story is that if your doctor doesn't "get it", find other ones. Sometimes looking into alternative medicine helps as well. Be sure to check their certifications though :)

RE: exercising, I'd suggest Matt Furey's Combat Conditioning and Combat Abs books. He teaches exercises that one can do at home -- and they strengthen the entire body without the bad effects of weightlifting. They kick butt. My formerly pudgy husband has been doing them for months and he looks great. :D www.mattfurey.com

Comment from: Wednesday posted at August 31, 2005 6:08 PM

Finding other doctors isn't always particularly easy. At one point, I went through pretty much an entire NHS surgery's worth of staff, including their regular loca (locums?), and met with apathy and dismissal at best, derision at worst. ("Are you certain you're not just going home and sitting down with a pint of ice cream each night?" I swear to God I'm not making that up.) It took moving to another health authority to get taken seriously on one major issue.

As for alternative medicine, I concede to being more than slightly wary of it.

I've never found weightlifting to have any negative effects other than being too damned expensive, but that's me. :)

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