Juan José Torres, 49, has suffered from asthma since he was 25. He lives in Barcelona and, especially in the last decade, pollution has taken a toll on his health.
A Juanjo Torres, 49-year-old, a pulmonologist recommended that she go to live outside of Barcelona. It is asthmatic since he was 25 years old but, in the last eight, he has suffered more intensely bouts of bronchospasm. “If I could choose, I would live in the country”, This businessman tells us that, for work reasons, he cannot leave the city. Lives in the Tetuán square, in the Eixample, one of the most polluted areas of Barcelona. He has it assumed: “For an asthmatic this is not the best.”
Torres began to feel better when he began to be treated in the asthma unit of the Hospital de la Santa Creu y Sant Pau. “They have improved it a lot, but what most affects us asthmatics is pollution,” he says. When those pollution episodes in which Barcelona is stained with a yellowish mantle, Torres can hardly breathe.
“I can’t go jogging in the morning, as I usually do, and I notice that the lungs do not throw me. In any exercise that I do, like climbing stairs, my heart goes much faster. And, if I go down the street talking on the phone, the person on the other side asks me if I am running because it seems that I’m drowning”, relates this neighbor of Barcelona. “I can’t walk at the same speed I usually go,” he adds.
What do you do then? “Well, what I can, slow down.” If you play sports, lower the intensity. If he has to climb four flights of stairs, he stops to rest on the third. “All physical activity is resentful”, Torres tells.
Asthmatics notice polluted air more. “You do not perceive that the contamination bothers you much because your lungs are fine. But those of us who do not have good bronchial tubes are immediately affected.”
Better in confinement
Doctors insist to this man that pollution is not good for your disease. In fact, Torres remembers how during the home confinement last year he noticed a lot the absence of pollution, “like all the citizens of Barcelona”, he says. “I spent two months without stepping on the street because, as I am asthmatic, I couldn’t risk it. But when they let us go out to play sports, I did notice it “, assures.
Neither does the face mask solves your problems with pollution because the mask “does not help to breathe”. “For an asthmatic, wearing a mask on the street is like doing sports with a mask. Yes, it is true that it allows less pollution or mites to enter, but it also takes away my lung capacity.”
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Torres’ asthma treatment is based on corticosteroids. Not only does pollution affect your disease, but also the temperature changes, such as heat waves. “But what affects me the most is the pollution,” he insists.
In the Sant Pau asthma unit they administer a state-of-the-art specific vaccination that he has managed to eliminate his hospital admissions. During a time in his life, Torres entered every two months on average. “Thanks to this I’m better, but the truth is that I didn’t see the way out,” he concludes.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com