Posted on 05/27/2005 2:42:14 PM PDT by fortunecookie
For asthmatics, laughter is no laughing matter Fri May 27, 2005 1:08 PM ET By Alison McCook
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - More than half of people with asthma have symptoms that are triggered by laughter, according to new study findings presented this week.
Laughter is "one more trigger in a long list of triggers" for asthma, study author Dr. Stuart Garay of the New York University Medical Center in New York told Reuters Health.
However, among people with symptoms brought on by laughter, nearly half said they could laugh attack-free when their asthma was under better control. To Garay, this suggests that people who get asthma symptoms from laughing should consider tweaking their medicine to improve control of their condition.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.reuters.com ...
I have allergy related asthma, not the frequent attack kind, but laughter has always been a trigger for me and led my pediatrician to suspect a kind of asthma. But I still love to laugh! And Comedy Central can leave me coughing for quite a while!
My wife's family has mild asthma. They like to make each other laugh - sometimes for fun, sometimes for cruelty. Every once in a while as kids they were sent to their rooms because everyone was getting completely cracked up to the point of breathing problems. At my wedding, one of these escalations resulted in my mother in law cracking a rib. Once it was known, it was absolutely forbidden to laugh around her. It got to the point where people would look at her and break sponteneously into howling laughter as they ran from the room as quickly as possible. The reception was, ummm, hilarious! Fortunately only close familiy and friends showed up, since it was 32 below zero and all of the roads around Calgary were closed. The next day we woke up in Florida. What a week!
A relative has asthma. While watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail once, he laughed so hard, so the story goes, that he had an asthma attack and fainted during the Black Knight sketch. People around him were laughing so hard they didn't notice until he started moaning as he was coming around. He still tells this story.
I got it all the time so I dont notice..
My neighbor has it like that. That is definitely the much worse variety. It's still good to laugh, even when we pay for it. ;-)
My younger sister didn't get it, that I had a type of asthma. We'd all by laughing at SNL or some comedy when I was younger and I would have to cough and she would freak about why did I have to cough, it embarassed her if we were in public. She gets it now. I've never cracked a rib, though! Have pulled rib muscles, and boy is that painful! I can't imagine the broken rib pain! Is there nothing that can help? I find cold air or cough drops relieves the coughing. She must really have it bad.
LOL! That's actually funny, in retrospect, since he was alright. I've had to leave the room and run outside, when cold, for a breath. We, too, laugh at Monty Python. My son has the mild asthma like I do, and he also has laughing as a trigger, so we crack up trying not to make each other laugh. It can be really funny.
I used to have laughter-trigged asthma, but no more. I take one 10mg singular tablet per day, along with two doses of Serevent Discus (I prefer the inhalant, but alas, Glaxo discontinued it in order to (in their words) "save the ozone layer." These are wonder drugs, in my opinion.
Make that "Singulair." The beer was good this evening.
Save the ozone, lol. Better we choke, I guess. I have azmacort as needed. I find, as the doc suggested I try, that I need it at more at some times than others, like now with the lilacs out. Also, flonase controlled my allergies so well, I was able to cut back on inhalers. But alas, when my insurance changed, it wasn't covered so I haven't had the pleasure of the very expensive, very effective flonase for at least a year. I haven't tried singular, I'm glad it works for you. I was told it wasn't needed, being mild and allergy or virus triggered. When the golden rod goes all golden, I may splurge for some flonase to keep triggers at bay.
I know someone with asthma who has fainted two or three times while laughing. Whenever she finds something hysterically funny, people around her yell: "Breathe!".
LOL! If only it were that easy! At times, especially in the winter if I have a cold and am laughing, I dash outside for a breath of cool air so I can breathe! Crowded and smoky places are also bad, I don't do well in the middle of a crowd. I had to dash outside several times during a night at a comedy club! Lucky for me it was winter! I almost fainted once or twice at Church because I felt suffocated in the middle. I try to find perimeter seats everywhere.
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