I have had asthma since 3 years old.
I have a great pulmonlogist. Aa soon as he knew the AS diagnosis, he ordered a chest ct..
When I would be on prednisone , the body pain disappeared. We knew I had an autoimmune disease.
The lung Dr is amazing, my asthma is in control.

@A MySpondylitisTeam Member, another great question! I've grown to cherish you and so many here at the Myspondylitisteam community.

My diagnosed COPD is due to rib cage restrictions caused by AS. Asthma has been witnessed by doctors, due to bronchial spasms caused by nerve damage from the spine's AS disease.

Now the good news.

Recently, anaerobic exercises have helped to increase my peak flow from 480 L/m to 600+ L/m. The exercise is simple. Breath x seconds, exhale same seconds, hold same seconds, and repeat 10x for 4 - 10 times per day. I started at a maximum 2 seconds. I'm back up to 5 seconds now, in 2 weeks, after a recent COVID set me back to 2 seconds.

As an 11 year old, I did 3:43 per step. Never felt a need to improve that. Some people exceed 6 minutes. A retired navy seal instructor working as a phy'ed instructor taught me this method in 7th grade. The recent Avatar movie reminded me of this effective and simple exercise.

As always, talk with your Pulmonologist before attempting this exercise. If you go ahead and try this, make sure someone is around you. Pushing too hard, too fast can cause stress to your heart. Light coughing from taking a maximum breath is typical and okay. Passing out or experiencing arrhythmias is not okay. Increase slowly over weeks not a few days and the exercise should be fruitful.

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Thank you everyone. I was really sick a month or so ago. Doc was not sure exactly what I had because it was alot. Possible pneumonia, bronchitis, possible strep throat, uveuitis, ear ringing from inflammation, lungs didn’t sound good. I was sick.
The only reason I wrote possible pneumonia and strep was because she didn’t test me because I did not want to wait to get an x-ray. I wanted to go home. I was afraid she was going to put me in the hospital. Yikes!
She was fine with that because the antibiotic, inhaler and prednisone helped all of it.
Ever since then I have noticed my breathing isn’t as good.
Lately my ribs feel so tight and a lot of pain between my shoulder blades.
I don’t know natbe it’s time to see a pulmonologist again.

Thanks everyone. You guys are the best.

Thank you so much Brian. You are so knowledgeable you should be a doctor. I was misdiagnosed for years with asthma. Even when I told them it was not asthma. They did the pulmonary function test again and she said, well you don’t have asthma but a restrictive pattern for someone my age.
That was as far as it went and that was many years ago. WhenI was still trying to get my disease diagnosed other than them saying it was fibromyalgia. 😡
Great, I’ll add another doctor to the list! 😉😆

@A MySpondylitisTeam Member, what a wealth of information you have. This is a good group. And I thank you for your posts, I look forward to them. You are an inspiration. 🕯️
@A MySpondylitisTeam Member, glad to hear your doctor is amazing.
@A MySpondylitisTeam Member, hi, asthma is not our friend. 🙃
God bless,
@A MySpondylitisTeam Member

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