Around 1.5 million people in the UK suffer from asthma and need to be a bit more careful in this the cold weather – I definitely feel it as soon as I go outside. It’s my first winter with asthma so I have been looking for tips about how to be more careful while out walking in the frost and the snow and these seem to be working for me:

• Cold air can exacerbate your asthma, so cover your face with a good scarf as this will help to warm up the air before you breathe it in
• In really cold conditions, prescribed inhalers may not work properly. They should be warmed (eg, in the hands) before use.
• If you know that cold air triggers your asthma, take a couple of puffs of your reliever inhaler before going outside and keep it with you at all times
• Keep taking your regular preventer medicines as prescribed by your doctor
• Take extra special care when exercising in cold weather. Warm up for 10–15 minutes first.
• If you are going out and about with others, make sure they know you have asthma should  you become short of breath.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Asthma, winter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.