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The thing is what I described would be mild/moderate asthma that wasn't being controlled very well. Virtually all asthma sufferers will have gone through very similar experiences until they worked out how to manage it.
Some people have much more severe symptoms than this and they can't get those symptoms under control with the dozens of different inhaler/drug combinations available. The most severe sufferers needing steroid injections to try to avoid life threatening asthma attacks.
I just can't believe someone with asthma so severe and so out of control, where steroid injections were considered the only option, could still be able to compete at elite level sport.
I guess I'm just f*cking angry that some athletes have used their mild/moderate asthma as an excuse to get an edge, mainly because they're taking the piss out of all asthma sufferers by doing so. But also sad because all athletes with asthma will now be doubted, most of whom deserve a medal for just making it to elite level sport and should be an inspiration for kids with asthma.
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zeez
Mate, I'm sure everyone is generally sympathetic to how asthma has affected your life. It sounds like really impacted on your childhood, which sucks.
I think what you're missing when you say:
is that the aim of the treatment for you and Wiggins is completely different. Your doctors were dealing with a potentially frail young boy and frankly their main focus was probably to achieve the minimum intervention that would keep you alive to adulthood. There are pretty obvious reasons why doctors might avoid injecting hardcore steroids into pre-pubescent kids. Wiggins isn't a vulnerable child, he's one of the fittest humans on the planet. His symptoms were most likely never close to life-threatening but could have been bad enough to impact his performance significantly. That's the point of a TUE.
I can see why it would sting for you to see athletes (allegedly) abusing drugs designed to help sick people, but then we're back into the moral grey area again.