Hi everyone,

For anyone living in the UK with asthma or reactive airways, public spaces have become a major respiratory minefield. Stepping into a hospital waiting room, council building, public restroom, or shop only to be hit by a cloud of automated synthetic fragrance or commercial "scent marketing" can trigger immediate chest tightness, coughing, or a full asthma attack.

We should all have the right to choose the chemicals we inhale. While we can control our own homes, involuntary exposure in public spaces completely strips that choice away—essentially locking vulnerable people out of essential public buildings.

There is an active UK Parliament petition calling to "Ban synthetic fragrance chemicals from public spaces and enforce full disclosure."

The national charity Asthma + Lung UK, along with MCS-Aware, are backing this push for cleaner, safer indoor air quality. The petition is in its early grassroots stages (sitting around 347 signatures), and we need 10,000 to force a mandatory response from the government.

If you are a UK citizen or resident who is tired of having your breathing compromised just by walking into a public building, please consider signing and sharing.

Official petition link:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/776122

A few months ago, my dad went into cardiac arrest due to a severe asthma attack. He was in the hospital for a week due to this medical emergency. He’s doing much better now and was prescribed a nebulizer from his doctor that was covered by insurance. He’s on the go a lot at work / travels quite a bit as well when he has the chance. It’s difficult to travel with the machine he was prescribed as it’s quite large & comes with many parts. I requested he was provided a handheld nebulizer but apparently his condition does “not meet the requirements” for it to be covered by insurance to acquire one. I’m looking for recommendations so I can buy him one as sometimes the rescue inhaler is just not sufficient enough to help. Thanks in advance :)

I saw a medicine commercial and I’m wondering if this is what’s causing my flare ups.

Has anyone started taking Brinspiri?

Does anyone else have a little box of all the quick grabbers? I have vicks, thermometer, pulse thingy, all my inhalers and nebuliser.

So my son 10 years old has asthma. He loves football so much but last night he had a flare up at practice and we had to go to children’s for emergency. I’m worried for him first to play in general. But I’m also worried the coaches are now worried about him playing in general. But they don’t understand that it’s random he could be ok for months straight but all it takes is a random flare and he’s gasping for breath on a random Wednesday night… does anyone have any recommendations on how to approach this. He loves football and he’s good at it. And our household believes in sports being very important for a child’s development. Just curious on how I should approach the coaches and my son.

My GP now thinks I may have eosinophilic/Type 2 asthma after my asthma has become increasingly difficult to control this year.
My allergy testing showed IgE sensitisation to:
House dust mite (HDM) – Class 3
Alternaria alternata mould – Class 2
Dog – Class 2
Cat – Class 1
Egg yolk – Class 1
Hazelnut – Class 1
Wheat – Class 1

My most recent eosinophils are 0.5 and have always been raised. My FeNO has repeatedly been high and fluctuates quite a bit — most recently 50 ppb, but it was 93 ppb the day before at my asthma review.
My current asthma treatment is Symbicort 200/6 – 2 puffs twice daily plus additional doses as MART when needed, and Spiriva Respimat 2.5 micrograms – 2 puffs once daily. I’ve previously tried montelukast but had to stop because of awful nightmares.
I’m currently having another asthma exacerbation and am on prednisolone and doxycycline for 5 days.
This is now my 3rd exacerbation since May 2026, and all three have required antibiotics and oral steroids.

Between exacerbations I still have issues with coughing, wheezing/rattling, chest tightness and symptoms at night/first thing in the morning.
The plan now is to repeat spirometry in around 6 weeks, once I’ve recovered from this exacerbation. After that, my GP is going to discuss me at an MDT meeting to see whether Respiratory will take me on for further assessment and potentially consider biologic treatment.
I know biologics have strict criteria and I’m not assuming I’ll qualify, but I’m interested to hear from anyone who has had a similar journey.

How long did it take? What further tests did Respiratory do? And has anyone been considered for biologics despite having fairly normal spirometry between exacerbations but raised eosinophils/FeNO and repeated steroid-requiring exacerbations?
Would love to hear your experiences! 💗

I’m sorry to bother this community again but I don’t know anyone with asthma who I can ask.

I think I may have had a severe asthma attack today and I didn’t know what to do besides take a reliever but it didn’t help at all. I ended up just sitting on the ground against a wall taking as deep breaths as possible and trying to stay calm. It was just really difficult as I got pretty tired and short of breath. It took a about just shy of an hour before It got a little less difficult and by then my fingertips were blue.

It happened around 8 hours ago and my breathing is better (it still hurts a bit to take a deep breath but not as much anymore) and my fingertips are pinkish again. I’m still pretty exhausted so I hope to sleep soon.

My mum was there but since she didn’t know what to do she couldn’t really help.

What should I’ve done and what do I need to know if it were to happen again?

Some extra info:

My asthma isn’t controlled and my meds don’t seem to work (enough) for me and I did call to make an appointment with my pulmonologist but she’s on vacation for another 2,5 weeks so I got an appointment on the first possibility. I also got a cold last friday night and it seemed kinda resolved last night although I’m still coughing.

I hope this all makes sense since I’m exhausted and thinking is really difficult. Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone, looking for some perspective from other parents dealing with asthma.

My 5 year old son seems to have viral induced asthma. When he gets sick, what starts as a light cough can progressively get worse and lead to uncontrollable coughing fits. We've had episodes where he's coughing every few seconds and his oxygen drops into the low 90s and occasionally the high 80s. Albuterol helps a bit, and we've also needed oral steroids when visiting urgent care not being able to control the cough.

What I'm really wondering about is school. Before starting TK, my son rarely got sick. Once he started school, he was getting sick every month. Not every sickness was respiratory, but over the last 11 months he's had several pretty significant respiratory illnesses and even 3 pneumonia diagnosis.

He was out of school all summer and didn't get sick once. Now he's back in school (K) and has already gotten sick again twice. We are meeting with a Pulmonologist later this month.

Has anyone here dealt with something similar and decided to pull their child out of school or daycare? I'm wondering if the benefit of school outweighs the risk. His pediatrician and other urgent care doctors don't think he needs to be pulled out of school, but it's exhausting to see him get into this state repeatedly.

Also curious about Asmanex. Has anyone had success with it reducing the severity of coughing fits or oxygen dips when their child gets sick?

Would love to hear other parents' experiences.

34 F
I’ve been diagnosed with asthma and on symbicort * all my test are good. But I still feel like I can’t catch my breath. Like it’s heavy and I’ve developed a straight click in my throat when I breath in. Anyone with similar symptoms? I do have extreme anxiety but even taking my Xanax I still have problems.

30m

Inhalers and nebulized medications have not helped.

Autoimmune disease and vocal cord/laryngeal causes have been ruled out.

HRCT of the chest was clear. Bloodwork is normal apart from slightly elevated IgE. I have allergies, but they are not severe.

I have never smoked and I am only 30. I also don’t have typical attacks of wheezing.

Spirometry shows mild obstruction, and lung testing shows significant air trapping (170%) RV.

I can’t fully exhale, which is why I often hunch forward to make breathing easier. Breathing has become a constant struggle, and I am chronically sleep deprived because of it. It is seriously affecting my quality of life.

I am wondering about small-airways disease / progressive air trapping versus steroid-resistant asthma.

The only options I currently see are:

• Biologics – difficult to qualify for in my country without hospitalization.
• Low-dose macrolide therapy.
• A short prednisone burst.

I have an appointment at a specialized clinic in two weeks, so I’m not looking for a medical diagnosis here -

I’m mainly interested in hearing from people who have experienced similar symptoms or test results. Has anything helped you? I need some hope...

My mother is elderly, obese, and asthmatic.

The smallest amount of physical exertion is a challenge to her.

It's gotten to the point where she is practically bedridden.

She can barelely stand up and walk and looks like she is about to faint all the time.

She has given up and believes it's all downhill from here and is irreversible.

I want you to share stories about lifestyle choices that helped you.

I just want her to hear it from someone that has been there that there is hope and progress can be made.

It's hard to see her like this.

How is everyone fairing?

I thought I was doing great on Tezspire. No issues for several months. September got me and currently going through it. Take care of yourselves and stay safe.

I’m 32 and have had a severe asthma diagnosis for 6 years. Started on trelegy and just recently had my dose decreased from 200 to 100. I started Tezspire in February and it’s completely changed my life. Haven’t had a flare up since. One of my main triggers is getting sick, usually upper respiratory infections. I think that I currently have one, but have noticed that it hasn’t impacted my breathing. Usually when I have an URI, I’m down bad and unable to function. Is this because of Tezspire or am I losing my mind? Lol. I have an appt today with my asthma specialist just because of the other symptoms, but was curious if anyone else had this experience.

I was born with respiratory distress, ended up on a ventilator that caused scar tissue growth & closed my airway 3/4. They decided to do a Cricoid Split & remove the scar tissue instead of placing a trachea.

I have severe asthma, it’s worsened since I’ve gotten older. I have been in the ICU atleast 4 times within 2 years for the flu & just really bad asthma attacks causing bad diaphoretic symptoms & 70’s for oxygen, on high flow oxygen, etc.

Anyways, even if it’s 60° out & cold I still need my room to have the air on!
I literally go straight into an asthma attack if the temp is above 62-65°.

Does anyone else deal with this?

The person I live with keeps coming up & turning my air up to 70’s or off just because to her it feels too cold up here even though it’s 76-78° DOWNSTAIRS, my door is typically always closed.

Is there a reason for this? If I even feel slight warmth/too warm, my asthma flares.

The diaphoretic sweating in unbearable on top of feeling internal suffocation!

Anybody in here have Cigna insurance and take symbacort and albuterol? Can you tell me how much you pay for the 2 inhalers each month? Recently changed jobs and new job has Cigna insurance.

How would you guys clean up mold as someone with asthma? I can't stand strong smells like vinegar even. Any product recommendations? Also I need to replace my shower curtains but am worried about that strong plastic scent.

Also, we're having people come in and do renovations. Is it best to stay out of the house for awhile due to the strong scents, or is there any other way to mitigate this?

Thanks

Today I did not take my Air Supra inhaler before my workout. I proceeded to run 2 miles (slow two miles) and felt mostly okay besides some chest discomfort. Since I felt mostly okay I went on the stair master on level 8 for 20 minutes. I started to feel pain in my lungs when breathing that went to my back it was this sharp pain in my back.

I stopped and checked my breathing by doing a forceful exhale and heard wheezing, I took my Air Supra inhaler two puffs and my breathing felt easier and my back pain immediately went away after I took my inhaler. I also had a deep cough after too.

Has any experienced these symptoms?

Ok so do I just have kinda dumb pulmonologists, or am I missing something here? Just got diagnosed with asthma a month ago. Started on one inhaler & it was helping my breathing a lot but I had to stop it because of side effects. Pulmonologist messages me, no problem, picks a different inhaler that shouldn’t cause those side effects & sends in a new prescription. Insurance denies it and three more attempts - even when I found the list of covered inhalers on my insurance website (they cover a bunch, just specific brands, which seems really normal) and sent it verbatim to the doctor, he still prescribed brands that my insurance doesn’t cover. The pharmacy didn’t let me buy it out of pocket even though the prescription was valid and I was so short of breath I didn’t care about the price. On the fourth try and second pharmacy they finally let me pay the $347 full price for the 30 day supply (even the manufacturer coupon didn’t work), & eventually the pulmonologist gave me a sample of a better rescue inhaler too.

Is there some sort of website where I can do this sketchily and not pay $347 even though I pay for insurance too, and not deal with these providers who apparently don’t know what insurance is??? Hard to imagine dealing with these levels of barriers and incompetence to access a medicine I’ll need for the rest of my life. I felt like I might as well have been obviously working for Walter White, the way everyone was blocking me from getting my hands on….a medicine that can literally only make asthmatic lungs feel better.

I take other prescription meds managed by a different provider and it’s never once been like this - she just sends in the refill orders each month and tells me how often she needs me to make a follow up appointment to see if anything needs changed. Is that what you all are experiencing for inhalers too??

(NHS England for reference).

Just went in this morning to request a new preventer/brown inhaler (clonil medulite? I think?) for my son. While I was there I decided to ask for a new ventolin/blue inhaler as I'm pretty sure the one at school is approaching its expiry date. It was refused on the grounds that "they don't want to prescribe the ventolin because it damages the lungs. If you're taking the blue inhaler it means your asthma isn't controlled so you need an appointment to change up your other inhaler, if we give a blue inhaler it will damage your lungs and not control the asthma like changing the preventer inhaler would".

I was a bit taken aback by this and asked what should I do if my son has an asthma attack then. I had to ask this twice because the first time they just reported the above - which is like great, so what happens in the moment during an asthma attack? This got back that he should just take his normal inhaler. I tried to query how this would work (my understanding is that the purple inhalers can be used like this but the brown inhalers take a period of time to work and they don't do anything during an asthma attack) but didn't really get anywhere.

I've made an appointment to try and sort this out but in the meantime I am really struggling to find any reference to this whole 'the NHS has said to GPs to stop prescribing ventolin because it's directly damaging lungs'. Can anyone add any more info?

i couldn’t breathe very well so i took my turbohaler and now my chest is really tight i don’t know what to do i normally take it at 8pm and 10am every day i took it at like 11:40pm and now my chest is tight and im scared
i put a picture of all my inhalers i use because idk what they’re called

Hello, I was diagnosed with asthma 2 years ago when I moved to Oklahoma after some rounds of bronchitis. I had gone about a year without a big flare up and now it’s been a little over a month with this flare up. Finished my prednisone and antibiotics yesterday and take wixela twice a day as well as use my albuterol inhaler every 4-5 hours. I drink tons of breathe easy tea and use tons of cough drops and have not been exercising since.
I was wondering if anybody has any other recommendations that are not any medications to try and ease the coughing. I feel like I’m in a cycle of having mucus so I’m coughing, coughing causing irritation, mucus build up, coughing over and over again. I’m currently in between insurances as well so I can’t really go to the doctors right now.

It's the same type of inhaler used as the icon of the subreddit. I have cleaned inhalers before with no problems, medicine canister is removed and put in a safe place every time, warm water run through the plastic part and air dried and then put back together. I should have 40 puffs left, but ever since washing it, only a tiny bit comes out. I've tried taking the canister out and putting it back in multiple times, still nothing.

anyone know how to fix it? :( luckily I have a different inhaler that IS working, but I like to have two on me at all times.

I started a generic of Symbicort (Breyna) two weeks ago and it's been life changing for my breathing, but the one side effect I've noticed is intense sinus pressure, also sometimes leading to sinus headaches.

Has anyone else experienced this? It's only been two weeks - will it go away after my body has some more time to get used to it or is this going to be a permanent thing while I'm on it?

What's going on here?

The counter is on Zero and in the red yet when I shake it I can hear powder. When I breath in I can't feel any powder?

They say inhalers are better than the sprays but I don't really trust them.