Asthma A to Z - Real Patients: Diagnosis

I found out that I had asthma approximately seven years ago. Had trouble breathing while doing a physical activity. Would get to a certain point to where I had like a lot of shortness of breath.

When I was little, my parents said I was in and out of the hospital basically every month. I’d spend probably about a week in the hospital every month from the time I was about three until I was about seven.

During my sixth grade year, I was in PE class and had a lot of trouble participating in activities and I had to sit down — and that was because of shortness of breath and wheeziness. And so after going to the doctor I was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma.

Before I knew I had asthma, I was always really active in sports. And I had always just assumed that, well, I was a little more out of shape than everybody else. So I would work harder, try harder. It was worrisome when I couldn’t breathe, but I just pressed on through it

When I was little that … when I was playing or outside in the grass or anything like that, I’d sneeze and come in and crying … and not being able to catch my breath.

My first thought when I was diagnosed was, “Oh, my gosh!”  — you know, “Is my health really in danger? Is this controllable?”

All I knew as a kid was that when I walked home from school I would get real out of breath, so I would have to sit down or lay down for a while. In my mind I didn’t know what was causing it, and that’s when my parents took me to the doctor and they diagnosed it as asthma.