Running With Asthma

It really bugged me when he said it was all in my head. His credentials came with a therapist certification, but he wasn’t a runner and he didn’t have asthma.  So as far as I was concerned, he didn’t know what he was talking about. I immediately dismissed his assessment by rolling my eyes, pursing my lips and refusing to look him in the eye for the rest of our time; which wasn’t hard because there were only ten minutes left. Ten, way-too-long minutes. When I arrived at home, I paced for a long time. How could he say such a ridiculous thing? How could he dismiss my symptoms, the diagnosis, all the medication? How could he so carelessly invalidate me, and the Doctor, and basically accuse me of lying? I was pissed.

He made the comment during his explanation of the mind-body connection in relation to illness.  When our minds are not in the right place, when we stuff our pain instead of dealing with it, the body takes it in and turns it into disease: tumors, cancer, acid reflux, gastrointestinal disorders, asthma, you name it. We swallow a lot of pain from life through divorce, death, abandonment, rejection, etc. and if we don’t purge it out of us in a healthy way it will stay in our body and reek havoc.  This was all fine until he said the asthma was all in my head. He laughed and insisted that I did not have exercised-induced asthma.

I did what any good rebellious woman would do. I went into the hills and ran. The dirt is my thinking ground. I did three loops on the cross country track, up and over, around and around.  Five miles later I was pooped and my lungs were burning. I couldn’t stop thinking about something else he said:  You need to set some boundaries and stop letting other people run your life. THIS I believed. I resolved to make it happen. I made an appointment with my mom and set the ground rules: no more men. One dad and two step dads is enough for me, I do not want anything to do with number four. Keep it to yourself. For the next year I had to practice keeping that boundary each time she pushed it.

Next I set boundaries with my husband. No more being responsible for his guilt and insecurities. Again, practice makes perfect to keep everyone on their own side of the fence. Once successful, I was gaining some self confidence. The half marathon was coming up and I was determined to run this one med free.  I wanted to be done with the twice-a-day Advair, the once-a-day Singulair and Alegra, and the just-before-a-run Albuterol  for a total of $150 per month.  The thought of running 13.1 miles med free was frightening, but I was determined so I pushed harder.

In another run through the hills, I started thinking about my mom and the more I thought the angrier I became. I had never been given permission to grieve the divorce, now 20 years in the past, because my anger made her feel guilty; so it was banned.  Running up the hill I felt my body begin to give out, I was running out of steam.  My breathing was labored.  My inhaler was back in the car. I allowed the anger and began to scream in my head, “She’s not my mother! She’s not my mother!” To this day, I do not know what I meant by that, but at  the time it worked as a release. As I came down the other side of the hill I was overcome with grief. For the record: it is physically impossible to run and cry at the same time. The lungs cannot multi-task. I stopped running, bent over and sobbed. Tears and snot ran from my eyes and nose. I let it all pour out of me and into the dirt. I stopped running away.

Sometime later I was forced to acknowledge that my asthma was getting better. There was no denying the relationship between my mental health and physical health; as the mental got better, so did my physical and vice versa.  I slowly weaned myself off of all the medication and ran the ½ marathon completely med free.  Then I came across some sort of spiritual book, which I can’t remember the name of, that listed all types of medical problems, from bladder infections to eye diseases, to cancer, to you guessed it…asthma. Each diagnosis had a corresponding reason to go with it. I flipped to the only one I cared about. “Asthma:  comes from not having a voice, feeling trapped.”

So I guess that annoying therapist who doesn’t run and who’s never had a breathing problem had a good point, much as I hate to admit it. My symptoms were real. My diagnosis was real. I failed the breathing diagnostic test at the hospital with flying colors. My disease was real. But the problem wasn’t in my lungs; the problem was in my soul. My mind, being the control freak that it is, and not knowing what to do with a soul feeling of being trapped, a feeling of not having a voice, sent the problem to my lungs. It was too much for them to bear;  they began to shut down and I couldn’t breathe.

I’ve run five ½ marathons so far, two of them med free and one full marathon, without so much as an inhaler. I feel free when I run; the wind blowing my hair, the music in my ears.  And my soul is happy with every deep and relaxing breath.

-Tara Schiro is the author of No Arms, No Legs, No Problem: When life happens, you can wish to die or choose to live NOW AVAILABLE http://www.amazon.com/No-Arms-Legs-Problem-happens/dp/0986305308 on Amazon and Barnes and Noble http://www.NoArmsNoLegsNoProblem.com

Showing off our medals after the Columbus 1/2 marathon

I recently ran (September, 2009) a 1/2 marathon in Columbus, Ohio with my childhood friend, without the use of Advair, Singulair, or Albuteral.  This was a first.  I had weaned myself off all the medication during this past summer, 2009, because I was feeling so much better from two things: First, all the running.  The key for me seems to be steady, long distance running that is providing the healing.  The more miles I log, the better my lungs function.  As a disclaimer, lest you think all I do is run, let me say that I log on average about 15-20 miles per week.  Not very much in the grand scheme of things.  When I run I try to do between 4 and 6 miles on weekdays and longer on the weekends.  Consistency is the key.

The second component is mental stability.  A mother of an 11 year old girl wrote to me recently about the medication her daughter is being prescribed during cross country and track season and wondered if I had any thoughts.  Here is my responses to her: “Again, I’m not a Dr., but I will share with you my experience with this. First, looking back at my childhood, I can see that I had EIA and did not know it. My ’symptoms’ began showing up in PE class in middle school. (Asthma is hereditary and my dad had regular allergy induced asthma as a child and grew out of it in his teen years. My asthma seems to be exercise induced.) While running the required 1/2 mile at the beginning of class, in the required time frame, I “couldn’t keep up” and thought I was just out of shape. Through high school, I wanted to be on the cross country team but when I practiced, I was immediately tired. Like, I had to stop and walk within the first two minutes of running. I walked and jogged the rest of the way but I mistakenly thought that I couldn’t do it; I wasn’t good enough. Interestingly enough, this is the same time frame when my parents began having problems with their marriage. I did not know it at the time, but, my 13 year old brain translated their problems into a self esteem issue for me: I’m not good enough. EIA is REAL. Please do not hear me as dismissing symptoms or that it is all in the head. But, what I am now exploring in my own story, is the possibility that my feelings of not being good enough shows up, to this day, in my running. Running is something I want to do, but it is a competitive sport that puts me in an arena where I am constantly comparing myself to other runners. Can I keep up? Can I do what my coach expects of me? Can I beat my time? Even this very second as I type, my lungs are tightening just thinking about it. I will be posting more on this topic in the near future so keep reading the posts. But, let me also answer a few questions for you. Encourage your daughter to run consistently all year long, not just during XC or track season. The reason is that once a person stops running for a few weeks or months, the body then needs to start over again with the new season. Any momentum is lost and needs to be regained.  If she wants to be competitive, she needs to be consistent throughout the year. She needs to keep her base miles, her foundation, really strong so that when she begins a new season of competition she will have a steady base to use as a spring board for improvement. There is a lot of mental stress that will occur if she has not been running and then all of the sudden begins a new season with the expectation of doing better than last year. Her lungs and her brain will go into shock with this new responsibility.  If you read through my posts, you will see that every year I participate in a 7 week 5K series. Each year I improve my PR by about 4 minutes or so but this is only because I run all year long. If I were to keep starting and stopping, I would not have this kind of improvement. If she is serious about wanting to run, and is having symptoms, you should take her to a pulmonary specialist who has patients who run. But, in my experience, two things have become the cornerstone for my improvement: consistency and mental strength. Self esteem, self image, value, self worth; these are all huge barriers to any sport if they are in the negative category. If your daughter keeps running, she will learn mental strength and mental toughness. Running has a way of putting these into perspective real quick. Again, thanks for writing and please keep reading as I work through this myself.”

2009 has been a year of upheaval and tremendous growth at the same time.  I don’t want to hear that my asthma is in my head rather than exercise-induced.  However, I also cannot ignore the fact the my mental strength is getting stronger and stronger and my asthma and my running are getting better and better.  I cannot ignore the evidence that physical and mental healing are happening at the same time.  They seem to be going hand-in-hand.  The reason I put the word “cured” in quotes is because I don’t know if I am.  I don’t know that a person can ever be “cured” of asthma.  Remission, maybe.  I will keep exploring and keep running and keep posting to let you know what I discover.  Thanks for reading and thanks for sharing. (Since this posting, I completed the LA Marathon in 2014, med free)

–Tara Schiro is the author of No Arms, No Legs, No Problem: When life happens, you can wish to die or choose to live NOW AVAILABLE http://www.amazon.com/No-Arms-Legs-Problem-happens/dp/0986305308 on Amazon and Barnes and Noble http://www.NoArmsNoLegsNoProblem.com