Read on dear Petpositive members and be enlightened and encouraged! aNt PET+BLOGSPOT.
Celebrity Health - Karen Pickering
 Karen has launched her own swim school |
She was four times World Champion, won 14 European Championship medals, 38 British Championship titles and 13 Commonwealth Games medals.
In the 2002 Commonwealth Games Karen won two golds and a silver medal and was given the honour of carrying the English flag at the closing ceremony.
Karen, who has asthma, has twice held a World Record and has competed at four consecutive Olympic Games.
In 1994 she was awarded an MBE for services to swimming and she has recently launched her own swim school.
I was about seven and I was playing tag in the street with my friend and I couldn't breathe properly.
No-one ever let me think that there was anything I couldn't do 
I assumed it wasn't the first time it had happened because I didn't think it was odd.
She then told me her brother had the same thing and it was asthma.
I went home and told my mum what had happened and what my friend had said. We went to my doctor (Dr David Harper) who then diagnosed me properly.
I can't really remember but I suppose as my friend's older brother had it too I probably thought it was cool.
Neither the doctor nor my parents made a big deal of it.
It didn't stop me doing anything. I just had to remember to take my preventative medication and carry a ventolin inhaler with me.
I played on all the school sports teams and was a good runner.
I did cross country races carrying my inhaler.
No-one ever let me think that there was anything I couldn't do. That is why I think the way my parents handled my diagnosis was so important. They just let me get on with things and never panicked.
I was given inhalers to take. They were the old capsule ones and the powder tasted horrid.
Dr Harper also suggested that I swam as it would strengthen my lungs.
In the late 90s the doctor with the British Olympic team (Dr Mark Harries) suggested I try an inhaler called Asmanex.
This changed my life and cut down the number of attacks I suffered in training and competitions.
As a kid, I had to rely on my mum and dad to remind me to take it but other than that it was no big deal.
As I progressed with my swimming, I struggled a bit with exercise-induced asthma.
I could keep an inhaler at the end of my lane during training and that made things easier.
I learned the hard way to make sure I took it before I raced too as I had an attack during a race once. After that I kept an inhaler with me in my tracksuit pocket.
I also struggled with the chemicals in pools. I was fine in the pool that I trained in regularly but suffered when I went somewhere else such as away on training camps.
I learned to manage my asthma better and prepare for training in different pools by upping my medication.
I still have asthma attacks and I have noticed since I stopped swimming so often that much lower levels of exercise now induce an attack.
So when I do swim, which is at least once a week, I make sure I do a lot of breath-holding drills to keep my lungs strong. I still always carry an inhaler with me.
The thing for me is that I don't know any other way. I have had asthma for as long as I can remember. It's part of who I am.
I know it must be hard for a parent to watch their child struggle to breathe but I was lucky that my parents did not wrap me up in cotton wool or stop me doing anything, they just made sure I took my medication.
I am grateful that they didn't act like it was anything special or anything to be scared of, it was just something I had.
Asthma doesn't have to rule your life, you just have to manage it so don't let it stop you doing the things you want to do.
Karen Pickering speaks to promote the work of Asthma UK.
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