Youngsters in Track Have Asthma on the Run

It’s 20 minutes before the West Valley Eagles’ track club practice in Canoga Park and 7-year-old Brian Trejo is taking a deep breath on his inhaler. He breathes in until the blue bag holding his asthma medicine collapses, indicating all the medication has reached his lungs. This dose is just one of three or four he must take daily to help control his malady.

Despite his periodically severe asthma, the small brown-haired youngster is one of his team’s best sprinters and long jumpers and has won an impressive bookful of blue and red ribbons in the last two years to prove it.

Brian is not the only young asthmatic who has taken up track and field with surprising results. Two dozen of his teammates--some of them the team’s best runners and jumpers--are asthmatics as well. Not only are they finally able to participate in vigorous sports previously considered taboo, but their health is improving too.

Work Out Like Others

Aside from the youngsters’ telltale inhalers at practice, there’s no indication their lungs are impaired. They work out and train three to four nights a week like everyone else. And some, like Brian, have reported their asthma has improved and wheezing attacks are less frequent since they started running.

For the 3 million to 4 million asthmatic children in the United States (30% of the asthmatic population) stories like Brian’s are encouraging. Studies indicate that the number of asthmatic children is growing as doctors have expanded their definition of the disease to include people who fatigue easily from exercise, who have chronic coughs, have recurrent bronchitis or lingering coughs after colds.

Asthma is a chronic condition that causes difficult and labored breathing. When an asthmatic’s lungs are triggered by certain stimuli, air passages narrow, tissues swell and muscles constrict. Mucus blocks the airways even more. Stale air becomes trapped in the lungs, which, when forced out, causes the characteristic wheezing associated with the disease.

Parents of asthmatic children have awakened to hear their child gasping for breath, their eyes huge with fright.

“It sounds as if they’re fighting for every breath,” explained one parent.

“Your chest feels like a balloon ready to burst, but it can’t,” said another father who suffers from the disease himself.

Afraid of Inducing Attack

“If you’ve ever had a bad cold or pneumonia and woken up in the middle of the night and couldn’t breathe, you know what these kids go through all the time. It scares the wits out of them,” said a nurse who works with them. “That’s why they’re afraid to exercise--they’re afraid of inducing an attack.”

In the last decade, however, opportunities have opened up tremendously for asthmatic youngsters. Ten years ago doctors would advise their patients to sit on their duffs, careful not to overexert themselves. Notes to be excused from physical education class were common, and asthmatics suffered the stigma of being sickly.

Since then, experts have switched their position and begun advocating physical fitness, particularly aerobic exercise. Even running, once considered off-limits, has become popular.

“Doctors used to say move to Arizona and keep the kids inside. Not anymore,” says Jess Trejo, Brian’s father. “Our doctor said, don’t make him an invalid. If he wants to run, let him.”

Brian’s allergist and pediatrician, Dr. Seymour Silverberg, explained that, “until recently doctors would have told you asthmatics shouldn’t participate in track. Prolonged running would progress into exercise-induced asthma. You’d start getting the symptoms after three to eight minutes of exertions.”

Improved medications and the 1984 Olympics changed all that. In the Olympics, 57 asthmatic athletes captured 41 medals. “Since the last Olympics there’s no longer any question about asthmatics and running,” said Silverberg.

A California study that followed 15 children with severe asthma through a rigorous six-week running program showed that while their fitness improved and they were able to run farther in the same amount of time, their asthma didn’t get any worse.

Brian’s parents are convinced that running has actually helped their son’s condition. Both dedicated runners themselves, they have noticed an incredible change in Brian during track season.

Has Fewer Attacks

“I keep a diary of his attacks, how often and how long they last and I’ve seen the number of attacks go way down,” said his mother, Cheryl. An attack can last from two hours to a week. “If he normally would have three attacks a week, during track he’d maybe have one. But his level of discomfort goes to almost zero.”

While the medical evidence is still inconclusive, some preliminary research indicates that exercise may actually improve asthma by reducing sensitivity of the air passages. It also seems to build endurance and expand the lungs’ capacity.

In other studies at the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine in Denver, one of the top asthma research centers in the country, doctors have found that regular aerobic exercise has reduced the need for asthma medicine.

The center’s pediatric asthma specialist, Dr. Robert Strunk, has had dramatic success with children exercising on machines. Even children with asthma so severe that they could only perform at 25% of normal capability eventually worked up to 100% capacity and were using less medicine to do it.

Strunk believes “the vast majority of asthmatic children can achieve the desired aerobic level if they start slowly and work up to it with proper training and supervision.” He recommends 30 to 40 minutes a day, three to four times a week with adequate warm-up and cool-down exercises.

Dr. Eugene Kenigsberg, head of the allergy department at Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills who trained at National Jewish, believes that, although exercise doesn’t improve actual lung function, it is beneficial because it “improves the rest of the body. Exercise makes for a leaner-burning engine, one that’s in better condition and puts less stress on the lungs. The muscles of the rib cage and diaphragm are strengthened by usage and exercise.”

Even prolonged running can be worked up to, Kenigsberg said. Some of his patients run 26-mile marathons. “I don’t know how they do it,” he said.

Only One Major Incident

Most of the asthmatic members of the West Valley Eagles don’t have any problem associated with their running, said head coach Jack Dawson. He could recall only one major incident involving their top intermediate athletic girl--one of the best long jumpers in the country.

“It was a scorching, smoggy day and she was competing in the 220 against another girl who was just as good as she was and she started to tighten up. She came wheezing off the field and they had to calm her down, regulate her breathing. It took about 10 minutes to normalize her,” Dawson recalled.

When the athletes’ asthma acts up, their coaches suggest that the children relax, walk around and put their hands on top of their heads, as if they were lounging back in a hammock, Dawson said. “That opens up their chests, gets the weight off their lungs and helps get oxygen to their body.”

“I’m aware of asthma problems at the beginning of the year, but it tends to clear up by the end of the year,” he said.

“In the beginning the coaches and parents were much more worried,” Dawson said. “But parents have told me it’s helped turn their kids around. Now, when new parents are skeptical, we tell them we think it’s a good idea, but we encourage them to ask their own doctors.”

Although Dawson noted that, in the last three or four years, a lot more asthmatic youths have joined the running club, he said that this year “they’ve been showing up all over the place.”

“Out of our 240 kids, I’d be willing to bet at least 10% are asthmatics.’

Two of the three other track clubs in the Valley also have their fair share of asthmatics.

Donna Bonheart, coach of the Chatsworth Chiefs, and Sal Pratts, coach of Las Virgenes, both said that, in their years of coaching, they have always had asthmatic children running.

“On the bad days, the kids won’t show up. Other days, they’ll fight through it,” Pratts said.

Only 2 in Club

Only the Northridge Pacers, with 145 children participating, had a low percentage of asthmatics. Coach Sandy Smith said she only knew of two asthmatics in her club, one of them her daughter. Canoga Park resident Cory Gaskins was hesitant when her 8-year-old asthmatic daughter, Lisle, expressed interest in running.

“Her older brother was on the team and Lisle came to me and said she wanted to run too. I said absolutely not, not with your asthma. I didn’t know she could,” Gaskins said.

But Lisle persisted and finally her mother agreed that if the doctor approved, she could run. “I was sure he’d say no, but he surprised me. He thought it would be good for her.”

During meets, which often last all day, Lisle walks over to her parents every few hours and they listen to her chest.

“If I hear some rattling I give her a whiff of her respirator,” her mother said. “The doctor said, if it’s necessary, I can give it to her 20 minutes before each race to counteract the dust they kick up. But it’s worked out fine.”

Has it helped Lisle’s condition? Gaskins pauses for a moment before answering. “I think it strengthens her lung capacity. But any improvement’s been subtle. She’s not having as many attacks at night, and she’s been sleeping better and sounder. But I haven’t noticed her asthma’s getting any better.”

Certain considerations must be made for the asthmatic children, acknowledged Brian’s coach, Phil Tuttobene.

“I push Brian the same as the other kids, but I watch him. If I see that he’s having trouble I pull him out or tell him to do one less lap or walk a little while.”

Tuttobene, a mild asthmatic himself when he was a youngster, said: “I can tell from his movements if he’s having trouble--his arms and legs don’t move properly. His movements start to get lazy and sluggish.”

But, no matter what, Brian keeps on trying, he said. He is better at the sprints and long jumps--he is the third fastest in the 100-yard dash and broke the team’s long-jump record this year with a 10-foot, 1-inch leap.

“No one discourages him. On his good days he beats some of the better runners on the team,” Tuttobene said.