My son was diagnosed with asthma. I know very little about the disease.

Can you still climb with it. We were planning a trip to Kili.

Any advice or info would be great.

Hello,

I have had asthma since I was an infant. I run ultramarathons, climb, have performed very well above 6,000 meters, and generally lead a very active life. There is anecdotal evidence that suggests children with certain lung ailments, including asthma, do better at altitude than otherwise healthy individuals.

My lung volume is measured at 7.2 liters, nearly 150% of what is 'normal' or 'average' or more precisely predicted for my height, race, and gender. My doctor has hypothesized that the 'hypertrophy' of my lungs may be due to the untreated asthma for the first 35 years of my life. Ed Veistures, the first American to climb all 8,000 meter peaks claims his lung volume of 7.0 liters as a key to his ability to perform well at altitude.

Jim Whitaker (first American to climb Everest) had severe asthma which improved at altitude due to the lack of allergens. Anatoli Bukurev, one of the best high altitude mountaineers ever, had lung disease as a child. Galen Rowell (first one day ascent of Denali) also had some type of lung ailment as a child which he credited for his ability to do well at altitude.

I urge you to see an allergist as there are many very effective drugs available, although the best are very expensive. Allergy shots were especially helpful for me.

Best of luck,

EB

Thanks for the info.

They gave him a drug called zyflo and an inhaler flovent and intal.

Ever heard of those?

I have a prescription for Flovent for 'emergency use' and Advair for daily, preventative use neither of which I have needed since getting allergy shots. Zyflo is similar to Advair in that they are both used to prevent asthma attacks rather than treat an attack (like Flovent), however, they work on very different principles. Zyflo is a leukotriene inhibitor while Advair contains both a corticoid steriod (an immunosupresent generally good to avoid if at all possible) and a bronchodilator. Intal works by by inhibiting mediators from mast cells. Functionally, this works along the same lines as a antihistimine. (Mast cells release histimine when an IgE antibody binds with an antigen and the antibody-antigen complex binds with the mast cell.)

Your child's Doctor seems to be taking a three pronged attack against the disease. ASSUMING your child's asthma is triggered by allergies rather than exercise (a condition called 'exercise induced asthma'), travelling to a different continent like Africa with a different climate and differnt flora and different allergen triggers may in fact be helpful for your child's asthma. Climbing above treeline where few plants grow may also alleviate the likelyhood of an allergy mediated asthma attack.

He also has given him an albuterol (sp)? for when an attack while climbing.

He takes the zyflo and 2 puffs of flovent a day and his regular training hike, that used to take over 4 hours to do, he now does in just over 2.

what can you do for excercise induced asthma

Snoopdani,

I was diagnosed with asthma at age 10. With proactive management (medical, lifestyle/staying fit, avoidance of triggers, etc.) asthma is basically a non-issue for me. May the same hold true for your son. My albueterol/rescue inhalors expire before I can even use 1/3 of the med in the cannister. I often forget I have a 'respiratory condition.'

Asthma can take very different courses, and as such can be very unique to the person. In my experience, with allergy-induced asthma, growing up with asthma was actually beneficial to my climbing. When I was young the asthma was bad enough to make exercise difficult, and in more than one occasion I passed out while running or began to hallucinate while cycling from hypoxia. I learned my limits, and learned to work within them while still pushing myself. Eventually through lots of exercise (swimming was an easier way to work around it) I seemed to 'grow out' of the worst of the condition to the point that I decided the inconvenience of living with an inhaler outweighed the inconvenience of using one.

In my late teens/early 20s I was rejected from an AFROTC scholarship on account of my asthma, but during my 'spare time' as an undergrad found that I was well above average in my tolerance to higher altitudes - perhaps due to my being used to exercising with hypoxia? Anyways, I still feel the condition, especially around pollen, smoking, and other particulates, yet it does not seem to be a hindrance to aerobic endurance or mountaineering above treeline.

These days the worst that I get is what I jokingly refer to as my 'healthy mountain cough' which is brought on by exposure to cold, dry air, but it doesn't slow me down too much!

I also have also had asthma since I was young... In the first initial years it was a bit of a problem, but I've heard, and this might be partly true, that its possible to grow out of it as one gets older. It definitely is not a hinderance of any sort for me any more, occasionally I'll have to take medication, but thats usually very rare.

Can't really tell how well I'll do at altitude yet as the highest I've been is around 10K, hopefully I get those awesome benefits that were discussed earlier in this thread!

Well, let me be the latest to join the Climbers with Asthma SP Support Group!

I had a severe asthma attack around age 12 (brought on by the stress of my parents' divorce) which then morphed into mild exercise-enduced asthma that was mostly aggravated by cold weather, which made my years on the high-school XC ski team extra fun. Not!

Fortunately, it's only bothered me a handful of times in adulthood and never in a climbing-related situation. However, just this past weekend, I went out for a trail run after not having run for about three weeks and felt like complete crap due to breathing trouble. The temps were in the mid 40's, which is much colder than I've run in recently, and I think some recent family/job/lifestyle stress may have also influenced it.

I'm glad to see that a lot of folks aren't slowed down by asthma, and am hopeful that it might actually help a little if I ever get to high altitudes.

I have had Asthma since around 3 years old. I was hospitalized, and nearly died, twice at ages 6 and 8. I was on shots, inhaled medicine, and actually had 02 at my house. I tested as being allergic to everything-grasses,weeds,tree and flower pollens, animals, dust, mold, even some foods. However, once I hit about age 10 I pretty much grew out of it, and went off all meds except that I kept Albuterol for the occasional tightness. From then on I became very physically active. My lung capacity was 20% higher than the average kid my age, and still is at 61. I had a reoccurrance of symtoms at age 40 that I think was mainly due to moving and being exposed to new local allergens. But it is very well controlled with Advair, and I take half the recommended dose. I run, bike, climb and have never had any significant problems with altitude sickness (some minor trouble sleeping and minor lack of appetite being the worst). I've been to 17,000 ft. As others have pointed out there is no reason to limit your child's activities and do your own research about what meds work or don't work. 2 of my 3 children have it and we experimented with doses to get them to use the least amount necessary and in most cases they ended up using half the dose the doc recommended, and/or taking them off one. Since stress tightens up chest muscles and causes one to breathe shallowley, I believe that regular exercise is a prescriptive part of easing symtoms.

I had mild/moderate asthma as a kid - not horrible attacks where I couldn't breath, but more of a low-grade chronic wheezing that got worse with exercise. I had some medication that I don't remember the name of to take for a while, and albuterol when needed. I still perform significantly below average at a test of peak flow rate. I think I'm probably about average at altitude - I sometimes get headaches in the Sierra(s) above 10,000 feet, but I've been to 6,000 meters without problems after a lot of acclimatization.

Why would someone with asthma have an advantage at high altitude?