My Asthma Story

I remember being 5 years old and gasping for breath, stripping off crying and wheezing. My mum and grandma smoked around me regularly. I suffered till about 7 with no help or treatment, then I went for a walk with a slightly older friend and my brother. He saw me struggling and let me try his inhaler. I remember running in saying mum I can breath so she took me to the doctor and I started on Ventolin.

I've had asthma all my life. I used to have bad attacks and end up in hospital for 7-10 days. Then I'd be out and ok for a while. It's always been brought on by exercise and cats, soft furred animals, dust, too hot, etc. When I was 30, my asthma seemed to get pretty bad. I was given steroids from time to time when younger but these days they've increased and increased as I've got older.

I used to be a slim-toned size 8 but now I'm a hefty size 24. This makes my breathing worse and I feel like rubbish every day. I wish I could find an alternative to steroids. Every time I go to the Dr. I come out with more when my cheats bad. It's a vicious circle I take steroids, I gain more weight, and that puts a strain on me so it makes me worse. I was called in by my manager about my sickness a few weeks ago. I've had a third of the year off cause of it which is terrible, I know. I can't seem to find the answer. I'm on the strongest steroid inhaler dose, I'm on salbutamol, singular tablets for my dust allergy, gaviscon and lansoprazole for my terrible acid due to steroids and being fat of course. I take painkillers cause I hurt so much. If I were an animal I'd have been shot years ago.