Dara Torres-Amazing

I used to think the same thing. About two years ago my wife was diagnosed with asthma at the age of 32 after having suffered breathing problems for the prior 5 or 6 months. The MD said it was not uncommon for these things to develop later in life. This is not to say that many athletes are not looking for a diagnosis in order to obtain a prescription though. No doubt there are many of those. My son had asthma in childhood. Our doctor predicted he would outgrow it in his mid-teens and that it would likely return in his mid-thirties. So far, the doc's been right (son is only 21, so we'll see if the second part of the prediction holds). In my own experience, I never had asthma until I started swimming nearly three years ago, and now about once every two months I get an attack in the middle of a swim practice. Often it is due to very cold, dry weather (we practice outside very early in the a.m.) or sometimes just from really pushing a sprint set. I have yet to get an inhaler for it, but it's tempting.

I used to think the same thing. About two years ago my wife was diagnosed with asthma at the age of 32 after having suffered breathing problems for the prior 5 or 6 months. The MD said it was not uncommon for these things to develop later in life. This is not to say that many athletes are not looking for a diagnosis in order to obtain a prescription though. No doubt there are many of those. My son had asthma in childhood. Our doctor predicted he would outgrow it in his mid-teens and that it would likely return in his mid-thirties. So far, the doc's been right (son is only 21, so we'll see if the second part of the prediction holds). In my own experience, I never had asthma until I started swimming nearly three years ago, and now about once every two months I get an attack in the middle of a swim practice. Often it is due to very cold, dry weather (we practice outside very early in the a.m.) or sometimes just from really pushing a sprint set. I have yet to get an inhaler for it, but it's tempting.