Asthma and cycling

Sometime around the early to middle of last year I had a chest infection which hung around and my breathing was awful. Eventually, after weeks of wheezing I took myself off to the doctor's and mentioned that many years previously I had used inhalers for Asthma. I had stopped because I thought it better to struggle through some bad breathing rather than pump chemicals into my lungs, and in any case it wasn't that bad. But nonetheless, would it be possible for an inhaler please doctor?
My motive, if I'm completely honest, was to become a drugs cheat.
A number of rides had been wheezy over the years but more noticeable was my ride to work. Near the end it involves a good long hill where I am near anaerobic for 5 mins. What I noticed is that quite often I would arrive at work fine. Then park up, enter the building and walk up three flights of stairs and that would kill me. No idea why the breathing suffered so much on the stairs. Could be the change in air temp, dust, air-con, ... Anyway this was clearly asthma but I knew that I could easily live without a puffer as it would subside after a few mins maybe. But wouldn't a puffer help me on the bike. A drugs cheat :)

The doctor actually agreed to the puffer and explained that the thinking nowadays is that struggling through these episodes is thought to be more harmful to the lung's airways than the chemicals. As the airways contract and stay contracted they will eventually loose their elasticity and this is thought not to be good in the longer term. So using the blue inhaler is preferable. Anyway, I was given a prescription for the blue puffer and told to make an appointment with the Asthma nurse.

It was about ten weeks ago when I finally made the appointment and I was wheezing quite badly after my walk there. I think that I'm probably a bit lactose intollerant and I had some milk on cereals before I left home.
Anyway, in the clinic I puffed on an airflow meter and scored a paltry 400 things per thing. Nurse Amanda gave me four puffs on a blue inhaler and 15 minutes later it was up to 565. It was not actually a whopping 565, as people do have more puff than that, but maybe my weight and general pathetic stature mean thats relatively a whopping for me.

After chatting and explaining stuff I went away with a brown puffer and told to use it day and night, one puff, every day. Clentil Modulite 100. It is a low dose and I should see an improvement after 5-10 days I think she said. I was advised that I could up it to two puffs per day if I felt I needed to as that was still a low dose. If my breathing was bad then I should use the blue puffer.

Airflow - Click to enlarge

My thoughts.
The airflow measuring is a really good thing. There is technique involved and you think you can cheat it, or perhaps get a better reading or perhaps worse one by technique alone. But I think it is honest. I think does truthfully say you are a 500 and not a 530. You can actually feel the state of the breathing and begin to know where you will be on the cuff machine and confirm it. It is excellent. Christmas meesed me up a bit with chocolates and cakes and I'm sure the diet, what ever it was in there, did affect my breathing. By keeing a chart like this I am finding patterns to food. I am sure that milk on cereals is bad for me. Within 30 mins my breathing can be worse. Not always but can be. I am not sure of this one though, but if I have a lot of chocolate at night, then the next morning my breathing is bad. I have not proved that one because I'm now losing weight for the Tour of Wessex.

Inhaler use - click to enlarge 

I the above chart, the yellow line is the Brown inhaler - Clenil Modulite 100.
The Blue line is the Ventolin inhaler used when breathing is bad. The Y-axis is 100 units per puff. So 100 is one puff and 200 is two puffs.

Drugs cheat?
Yes. I abstain from Caffeine till race day or the occasional training day, and I have puff or two on the Ventolin for big days only. I take the Clentil two puffs twice a day.

By the way, please don't be dumb and think that this is advice. Go see the doctor or asthma nurse and get it looked at by a professional.