2. I’ve always had it.

Five or six. They’ve discovered it at the same time as my allergies. We were visiting West Germany and the friends’ place we were staying at had cats in every room. My parents saw I wasn’t feeling well so they put me in a smoke-free bedroom (eighties, eh) and when it just kept getting worse they finally decided to take me outside for some fresh air. They had tests performed on me not long after. Inhale/exhale curve + exercise, allergy pokeys and the works, to get the definite diagnosis.

When I was 5, then I seemingly got better as a teenager and didn’t need an inhaler for about ten years. I got covid in my early twenties and got re-diagnosed after it ruined my lungs. And I do mean re-diagnosed, they wouldn’t prescribe me new inhalers from my original diagnosis after ten years of not taking them and I had to get a peak flow prescribed and do the tests over the phone since we couldn’t do it in person thanks to the pandemic.

Not me but my now husband at 27. I laid my head on his chest going to sleep and heard wheezing. I asked him if he always wheezed lol. He thought he was just out of shape and combined with really bad allergies. Respiratory conditions suck.

4, when I got a partially collapsed lung.

I was 5 when I had a wheezing fit running around at recess and noticeably couldn’t run as fast as the other kids. I told a teacher, she asked me if I had asthma. I said no because I didn’t know at the time, and told my parents “The teacher thinks I have asthma”. We went to the doctor and he gave me an inhaler, that’s all I remember.

Probably has a lot to do with access to healthcare. My parents were kind of hypochondriacs when i was young, so i was diagnosed as a toddler.

Lots of parents don’t know what to make of a kid wheezing, especially if it’s infrequent and mainly associated with illness. If you aren’t familiar with asthma you’d probably not suspect anything.

2 when I almost died in the hospital.

I got mild asthma around 30 thanks to COVID