A history of cough, dyspnea, wheezing, chest tightness or performance problems during exercise suggests the person may have Exercise Induced Asthma symptoms.
Confirmation of the diagnosis usually requires an exercise test, which can be made:
* Under laboratory conditions, using treadmill or bicycle ergometer and heart and respiratory monitoring. The person should run in a sufficiently intense to increase in heart rate by 80% or less, for 4 to 6 minutes.
* The outdoor race, trying to reproduce the situation that causes the asthma symptoms. We evaluate the distance covered in 10-12 minutes and relevant incidents during this test.
In either case, are performed spirometry before and after exercise at intervals of 5 minutes for 20 to 30 minutes. A 15% decrease in FEV, is the criterion for diagnosing exercise-induced asthma (EIA).
