I think that being on cortisteroids does slow the loss. However, before you settle for having asthma or bronchitis, consider this....

For two and a half years I thought that I had asthma. It's gotten so bad lately that I have been doing my albuterol inhaler every three hours...on the dot! I have to do a nebulizer machine twice a day with a stonger version of albulterol. I am on Singulair and Allegra-D, as well as Nasicort. I have been on Advair, Claritan, Flonase...you name it. All the while, things were getting worse and not better.

My weight loss has slowed to a grinding halt. I decided that the only way that I was probably going to lose was to start exercising. The first day I exercised and had an asthma attack that took me about 30 minutes to recover from. This was so depressing because it was a vicious cycle...can't lose weight because I can't exercise, can't exercise because of the asthma.

I started paying more attention to how I felt when I couldn't breathe and realized that I couldn't breathe very deeply because it hurt right under my breast bone. The lack of oxygen was so bad that I felt like I was going to pass out at times....that or else I had an anxiety attack (again lack of oxygen to the brain). I started doing some research on the web and found some articles about GERD (Gatroesophageal Reflux disease) and the asthma connection.GERD/ASTHMA

Basically what was happening to me was that when I did my bronchiodialator (inhaler) the esophagal sphychter muscle would relax and allow acid reflux to enter my lungs, thereby exercerbating the asthma-like symptoms...which made me have to do my inhaler more often.

At this point, I was desperate to try anything to regain my life back. I started taking PrilosecOTC and I am on day 5 of the first 14. Yesterday, the amount of time that I had to use an inhaler to breathe was about every 5.5 hours. This is very good for me! Even when I started wheezing, it was nothing compared to what it was.

This WOL eating is conducive to acid production, I'm afraid. So, if you do find that GERD may be the culprit and not asthma, you may want to eat smaller, more frequent meals to reduce the acid reflux.

Hope this helps someone!

Dana