First of all, hello everybody, i'm new to your forum. I'm a 42 year old electrical designer from nor. Cal. Usa. I've been married for 15 years and share 6 children (b,g,g,b,g,g ages 24 - 11) with my wonderful wife. I have had asthma for 40 years and have been through every kind of concievable medical treatment know to the western world. I qualified for treatment at the children's asthma research institute and hospital c.A.R.I.H. From 1971 - '73 and learned that to survive the horrifying effects of chronic asthmatic affliction I needed to have victory in the psycological front. Mind over matter we called it - (today they call this denial!)

this worked really well for me from my adolesence through most of my thirties until 1998. I had contracted the flu that winter and had been "sucking it up", self medicating with my rescue inhaler & "left-over" prednisone, continuing to work as an electrical contractor until it all came to a spiralling dance with the devil at 4:00 am when I almost expired in the emergency room at the local hospital. I spent 4 days in the hospital recovering, two months off work and was told that I had permanent lung damage and could not do any heavy physical activity ever again.

Not a man to be held back that was a hard "pill" to swallow (pardon the pun). To make a long story short, I took the lemons I had been given and made lemonade - I taught myself autocad and viola! - all my years in construction doing what I loved to do had made me an invaluable asset to any electrical engineer. I landed a great job at a san francisco bay oil refinery's research facility and my family was saved.

Now having said that, here is where I am now: I have a published allergy specialist as my physician and he tells me that i'm as good as i'll ever get. I'm taking advair 500/50 twice a day and using an albuterol rescue inhaler about 3 times a week. Because of my inability to do physical work or exercise I have ballooned from a lean mean 225lbs to 320 at 6'2".

My problem is, I can't exercise. I have no stamina- my muscles get oxigen starved before I can get to the point where i'm making any difference. My doctor says there isn't anything I can do to increase my lung capacity (which is at about 53%). Will I be able to do any good by using no impact type machines - is there any breathing exercises that might help expand my lung capacity or maybe even reverse the so-called permanent damage? I tried the atkins diet and lost 30 pounds or so - I let my diet laps a year ago and i'm back up to 305 i'm doing the atkins again but i'm afraid it's all meaningless unless I am able to exercise.

Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated!