ASTHMA can be deadly, it can ruin your life, prevent you from working, getting a job, it can even leave you housebound.

It's a condition which few people understand until it affects them.

It can start as young as six months old or may not come on until someone is in their retirement.

It may be brought on by irritants in the air such as pollutants, dust, smoke, or it could be brought on by exercise, stress, a cold, or an allergic reaction.

In Preston, 6,128 people -or one in 15- have been diagnosed as asthmatic although the true figure could be much higher.

The bad news is that asthma is on the increase, but the good news is that since it's become so common, it's being researched in depth, and treatments, such as inhalers, no longer carry a stigma.

Two local women tell their stories:

ELAINE AVERY is 29, she lives in Lovatt Road, Preston and works as a cleaner for British Telecom.

Five years ago she had a chest infection which left her unable to breathe: "I came home from the club and I couldn't breath," she said: "the morning after I was still the same, I was so bad I thought I was going to die."

She went to see her GP and discovered she'd had her first asthma attack. It was a shock at the time admits Elaine but with the help of her doctor and the local hospital she has learned to cope and now uses three inhalers for a total of four times a day.

There have been times when Elaine's been too ill to work - she had to stay at home for eight months last year. Then, when she began looking for another job, she found that many companies rejected her, she believes, because of her health.

ANN WAINWRIGHT, 30, of Mellor, has had chronic asthma since she was three years old.

In the last 27 years, she has been hospitalised more than 400 times and can't work because of her condition.

But Ann blames a lot of her problems on the ignorance of the time: "It took over seven years to diagnose," she said: "Now I have some lung damage because I wasn't given the right treatment straight away.

"They used to say 'she has bronchitis, or a bit of a cold', so I was given antibiotics."

Now Ann is is on a personal crusade against mis-diagnosis and wants to make sure it doesn't happen to others: "I want to make sure people know the symptoms of asthma and the treatment," she said.

Ann helped set up the Blackburn branch of the National Asthma Campaign almost five years ago and now she hopes to do the same in Preston.

Anyone interested in helping her set up a Preston branch can call her on 01254-812853.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.