Though Dennis Rodman is now well-known for his stellar basketball career, his high school coach didn’t consider him to have any athletic promise. It wasn’t until college when he’d had a significant growth spurt that he attempted playing basketball again. At that point, he was 6’7 and fared much better. When Rodman attended Southeastern Oklahoma State University, he was named a three-time NAIA All-American.
After college, he started his professional career with the Detroit Pistons in 1986. Rodman then went on to play for multiple NBA teams including the Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, and Dallas Mavericks.
While he eventually went on to play for international teams, he retired from basketball in 2000. During that time, he achieved recognition with the NBA All-Defensive First Team honors seven times and won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award twice.
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Given his athleticism, many people were surprised to find out that Rodman had been diagnosed with asthma years before starting his professional career.
In fact, he had a persistent form of the condition that was made worse by his chronic allergies. He eventually learned to control his asthma and manage the triggers.
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What Is Asthma?
Asthma is a chronic condition that affects the respiratory system. While people with the condition can have problems breathing properly at any time, these issues are usually worse during an attack.
When you have an asthma attack, you can experience narrowed, inflamed airways and an increase in the amount of mucus that’s found in the lungs. The end result is that you’ll have symptoms like wheezing, tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, and coughing.
The symptoms may vary in severity from one person to the other. However, it’s typical that asthma needs to be treated for the symptoms to ease.
Though anyone can develop asthma at any age, there are a few risk factors that can increase the likelihood. You’re more prone to have asthma if there are other people in your family with the condition, if you smoke, if you’re regularly exposed to cigarette smoke, and if you work in an environment that has chemical irritants. Statistics also show that Black Americans develop asthma at a higher rate than other ethnicities.
How The Condition Is Diagnosed
Asthma can be diagnosed through a series of tests. Before doing those, however, your doctor might opt to check for other acute respiratory conditions that can cause similar symptoms. If those aren’t present, they can take your medical history and move on to more specific tests. Some examples of tests that you might take are lung function tests, allergy tests, imaging tests, and sputum analyses.
The results will also help to determine the type of asthma you’re dealing with. There are currently four categories that are used. These are mild intermittent, mild persistent, moderate persistent, and severe persistent. Depending on where you fall, your doctor can create an effective treatment plan.
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How Asthma Is Treated
Given that asthma is a chronic condition, it can’t be cured. However, your doctor will focus on preventing attacks and managing your daily respiratory health. Doing this usually entails using certain medications at different times.
The specific drugs and doses will depend on the type of asthma you have. For example, those with mild intermittent asthma may only need to use an inhaler when they have an asthma attack. More severe types of asthma may call for a combination of corticosteroids, leukotriene modifiers, short-acting beta-antagonists, and more.
It will also be important to stay away from anything that can trigger an asthma attack. While these triggers aren’t the same for everyone, some of the things to look out for include pollen, smoke, cigarette smoke, air pollution, irritating chemicals, pet dander, mold, and moderate exercise.
It’s estimated that millions of Americans are living with asthma and not all of them are diagnosed. Though some people only have mild symptoms, there are others whose asthma can be severe enough to be life-threatening. If you’re experiencing persistent issues with your breathing, it’s best to talk to your doctor as soon as possible.
