We live and train at altitude. I say I’m too tall to have shortness of breath, but at times I do. After a couple of years here in Reno, Carmel hasn’t completely adjusted to the almost mile high elevation. And it was worse for me when I was younger, lived at sea level but ran harder and longer.
In college, after cross country or half mile training, I’d cough much of the night. Hacking, sneezing, almost like an allergy. I’d stopped running but my nose didn’t. It wasn’t pretty. Roommates thought I was crazy to keep running, but they’d probably think that of most of us now. Much later I learned this respiratory condition was interchangeably called Exercise Induced Asthma (EIA) or Exercise-Induced Bronchoconstriction (EIB).
After the first stages of coughing there’s a refractory period. You think you’re fine, everything’s okay, and then the coughing returns, seemingly for no reason and no exercise, even eight hours later.
A few years ago exercise induced asthma was a popular diagnosis. Many runners claimed to have it just so they could use inhalers that opened the air passageways and get a boost. For awhile 1/3 to 2/3 of all Olympic athletes claimed to have it just for the drug advantage.
The US and International Olympic Committees eventually came up with a test to see who had EIA with it’s bronchial spasms and constrictions and who just wanted to use some of the steroidal medications for a performance enhancing drug. (PED) In fact, exercise induced asthma affects 12-15% of the population. Dara Torres, the 42 year old Olympian swimmer has EIA and uses an albuterol inhaler as did Jackie Joyner Kersee, the great heptathlete.
When I took the test I qualified for a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for Masters Track and could legally use the inhalers. I tried one for awhile then tried conscious will, stopping the first cough, distracting myself and modifying my workouts.
Doing less long stuff and more of the shorter, quicker stuff worked. Exercise induced asthma sports generally include an aerobic component, where runs last longer than eight minutes, and are less common in predominantly anaerobic activities.
Now a new study in “The Physician and Sportsmedicine” suggests that fish oil-derived Omega-3 somehow helps exercise induced asthma. That traditional medicine would even consider nutritional and dietary consideration seems almost revolutionary.
Carmel and I have actually been going with the tide on this, taking fish oil for a variety of other reasons and didn’t realize we netted this side benefit. Studies have shown that three weeks of fish oil supplementation “reduces exercise induced airway narrowing, airway inflammation, and bronchodilator use in elite athletes and asthmatic individuals with EIB.”
I’m forbidden to say, so I won’t, that you might wanna try fish oil anyway, just for the halibut.
