Exercise Induced Asthma Attack - Part One

As described previously, on Saturday night I had to abandon the first game of the season before it got to half time due to an exercise induced asthma attack.  Quite a drama, resulting in me having a trip to Gawler Hospital in an ambulance and quite a few concerned people.  As promised, here's a post on the experience.

If you've never had an asthma attack, it feels like you're being starved of oxygen no matter how deep and how hard you breathe.  The purpose of breathing is to drive airborne oxygen into the tiny bronchiole passages in the lungs, where the blood whooshes by and absorbs the life giving element.  The blood carries the oxygen to where it's needed, where it converts to energy and life.  In an asthma attack, those tiny capilliaries in the lung go rigid and constrict and the oxygen uptake of the blood to reduce.  Thus, you are slowly strangling even if the lungs are bellowing away.  Quite scary. I'd hate to imagine how much so if one didn't know what was happening.

Which, luckily, I did, so when, in the fourth shift of my game, I felt my breath not functioning properly I started modifying my play.  Initially this was me getting off earlier than I would normally.  Then it was taking an extra 'transition' on the bench before heading back out (by which time my breathing hadn't returned to normal, which it normally would have well and truly).  Then, in my fifth and final shift, I just stayed around the centre line, slowly skating east/west like I was patrolling a blue line on the ice, intercepting, passing, threatening.  Quite effective, but my breathing was now beginning to struggle, so I got off.

Several minutes until half time, I thought I'd try and do as well I could on the bench until the siren, use that time to go and get my car keys and head out to my car where I had a asthma 'puffer'.  These are amazing medicine, causing the air ways to open up within the lungs, providing almost instant relief.  So, I sat panting on the bench.

My breathing kept getting more laboured, so I took off helmet and gloves and made it clear that I couldn't go back on.  A minute later I thought that I'd better head off now, not wait for half time, and left the court.