Next May 2 will be the 23rd World Asthma Day, a chronic disease caused by inflammation of the bronchial tubes which affects 4 million people in France. The testimony of Dorian, 27, severe asthmatic.
- Asthma, a chronic bronchial disease, affects four million people in France.
- In Dorian, the disease of severe asthma was diagnosed after attacks following allergy problems during his adolescence.
- Despite his severe asthma, the young man has set himself sporting challenges and participates in half-marathons.
Dorian is only 27 years old but his life has already changed 6 years ago: ” I was on vacation in Deux-Sèvres, in a fairly damp old sheepfold; I started to cough, without being able to stop myself, the air did not pass any more in my lungs; it’s very scary, you see yourself leaving when you can’t breathe, I didn’t know what to do “. In the emergency room of the Niort hospital where he was then transported, the diagnosis fell: asthma attack.
Returning to his home in Tours, he consulted his attending physician who referred him to an allergist. An approach that can be explained by the story of the young man who suffered from the beginning of his adolescence from allergies to pollens and dust mites, classic causes of asthma. Skin tests, prescription of more suitable treatment, Dorian’s state of health is maintained until 2020 when a crisis reappears following a cold.
“When the diagnosis of severe asthma was made, I said to myself that it was serious”
The allergist then sends him to a pulmonologist. ” It was he who made the diagnosis of severe asthma, says Dorian, and there I said to myself that it was serious! »
Grave to the point of shaking up his existence. ” When I was told a year before that I had asthma, I had already said to myself that I had lots of plans but not that of being asthmatic… But when I learned that it was with severe asthma, I imagined that I could no longer do anything except stay at home, on my sofa, without being able to move or play sports! »
” In fact, that’s not it “, he recognizes today. But all the same, his life was burdened with new constraints. ” It affected my professional daily life. I am an HR manager and this has changed my relationship with my colleagues and my employer: I have to go see a pulmonologist very regularly, I have injections to do, I have to attend respiratory physiotherapy sessions and I need to ask days to follow these treatments… But my director said to me one day ‘I don’t understand why you ask me all these rests, you only have asthma’… Already it’s not great to be asthmatic but in addition it is necessary that I justify myself to be it! »
“Asthma is not easy to manage when you have a married life”
If his treatments – a basic treatment with biotherapies in injection and support by physiotherapists – allow him to control his disease well ” and to be almost like everyone else Dorian also deplores the lack of consideration by the medical profession of the impact of asthma on the affective and sexual life of patients. “ With my spouse, I don’t have a problem because he was present during the first crisis that led me to the emergency room, he saw that it was serious; but in everyday life, when I’m tired because I’ve coughed a lot during the day, for example, I don’t want to share one of our favorite relaxations with him, a little trip on the banks of the Loire; I tell him ‘I’m tired, we’ll see about that tomorrow’… “. And his sex life is also impacted. ” It remains a physical activity that solicits the lungs, the breath, asthma, it is not easy to manage when you have a life as a couple. “.
An ally, sport, recommended for asthma patients
But Dorian discovered an ally of weight to better support the consequences of the disease: the sport, besides indeed very recommended for the asthmatic patients. ” I said to myself ok, it’s serious, but that won’t stop me from doing things, so I challenged myself to run. The physios accompanied me and I took steps running two, then five, then seven kilometers, and today I do half-marathons… and it’s not my lungs that bother me anymore, it’s more my legs struggling to keep up! »
Better still, his next goal is to run the Paris Marathon in 2024. While waiting for this great moment which will devote his determination to ” not refrain from doing things despite the illness “, a question, however, continues to nag Dorian: “ What I ask doctors is to shed light on a big question, when you are asthmatic one day, are you always asthmatic? In fact, they don’t know… “.
