Asthma A to Z - Real Patients: Asthma Attacks

With my last asthma attack I had a lot of wheezing and shortness of breath. And I wasn’t able to get any relief from my inhaler.

An attack just feels like you just can’t get air in or out. Just sudden … I don’t know, almost like a helpless feeling.

I picture somebody reaching in here and actually grabbing my lungs and starting to squeeze.

It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest and I just couldn’t catch my breath, as well as I couldn’t get the air out.

I actually felt like, you know, you’re breathing in but you’re not getting anything out. You feel like you’re puffing up, and puffing up and puffing up and … you’re getting air, but it’s not getting to your body.

Beginning to wheeze a bit, and to be honest, anxiety really sets in and it begins to feed upon itself in my case. I’d get more worried about it, start panting a little more. I may begin to cough. And when the coughing starts that[’s] when I know I’m in trouble — because generally, at some point, I will start to cough and I won’t be able to breathe in.

I got taken to the emergency room. I was hooked up to all kinds of different machines checking, you know, all the different types of vital signs. I was given breathing treatment and basically monitored for quite a long time.

It was not fun. So I went to the hospital and got breathing treatments and had a lot of relief from that.