So have I got asthma? And what can I do about it? I really don't know anything about it. I did mention my concerns to my doctor, who listened to my chest with a stethoscope for about 2 seconds and said 'You're fine'.

Now what?

Unless your physician is an asthma specialist or pulmonologist, he/she may not be aware of the many aspects of asthma. Ask for a referral to a physician specializing in Pulmonary Diseases. What you describe could be exercise induced asthma, but the only way to know for sure is to have an evaluation done by a knowledgeable physician in this specialty, most G.P.s are not trained sufficiently in this area, and are not up to date on the latest information available for asthma.

If you have asthma, you're already familiar with its chest-clutching, short-of-breath feeling. If you don't have asthma but want to know what it feels like, try this: Take two of those little straws that people use to stir coffee or tea. Clamp your lips tightly around them, and hold your nose. Now breathe. Feel how hard your lungs work to get air in and out? Or how quickly you get short of breath? That's full-blown asthma.

Of course, there are milder examples of symptoms, such as a whistle or wheeze when you breathe, a tightness in your chest or a nagging cough. But all asthma symptoms stem from the same problem - you are breathing through smaller straws in your lungs.

This chronic disease has several types. What makes them different are the triggers, the things that set asthma off. For some people, the trigger is an allergy to cats or to mold. Exercise can be a trigger, as can chemicals in the air, cigarette smoke or a cold or the flu. Some triggers are so stealthy that some people are never able to
identify them.

No matter what the trigger is, the end result is always the same - the airways tighten up and narrow, making it hard to move air in and out of the lungs. The whistle or wheeze you can sometimes hear when someone with asthma breathes is the sound of air rushing through these constricted airways and blocked air sacs in the lungs.

Many people unsure of symptoms they have, do not realize that they could have asthma. Do you have questions regarding your symptoms or experiences? If so, please submit them to us to post for others to read/respond to. If you can pass on other information, please do so with the forms provided on each page.