A woman has opened up about the “utterly terrifying” experience of almost losing her life to a condition that affects millions.
Sharon Marshall shared her story on This Morning, explaining that she began suffering from hay fever every Spring, but that one particular year her symptoms escalated dramatically.
As time went on, she noticed her hay fever getting worse and worse, prompting her to try a wide range of remedies to keep it under control.
She said nothing seemed to help — from eye drops and vaseline in her nose to keeping windows shut, washing her hair, using humidifiers, and even taking antihistamines.
Then, she said, things suddenly became far more serious, culminating in a frightening episode that put her life at risk.
“I woke up, and I was a single girl at the time, and I woke up in the middle of the night, and I just couldn’t breathe,” she told the show.
“I didn’t know at the time that that was an asthma attack, because I’d never had one before, and I didn’t know that I had it. It was utterly terrifying.”
Sharon said she was unable to think clearly and chose to wait until the morning, when her doctor’s surgery would be open.
“It was like being buried alive, which I know sounds very dramatic,” she said. “You’re scared, you get really scared.”
When she called the surgery, she was instructed to come in right away. She got a taxi to the practice, where she collapsed.
“I came round in the back of an ambulance,” she said.
She recalled asking if she could go home to feed her cat, but said a paramedic responded: “You’re going into cardiac arrest, we’re trying to take you to hospital to save your life, no you can’t feed your cat.”
Sharon spent a week in hospital recovering. She said doctors noted she didn’t smoke and later told her she had adult onset asthma, prescribing strong medication to manage it.
In the years that followed, she said she would repeatedly end up back at the doctor’s each Spring, baffled by how quickly her health shifted — one moment she could run 5km in the park, and a few weeks later she struggled to climb the stairs at the surgery.
Doctors worked through multiple possibilities and even sent her for lung cancer scans, before a chance conversation at work finally helped uncover what was happening.
Sharon, who works on The Morning, said she spoke with Professor Adam Fox, a regular expert on the TV programme, and he identified the issue as “Seasonal allergic asthma”.
Professor Fox explained that this type of asthma is triggered specifically during pollen season.
He said it happens when the upper airway reacts strongly to pollen, sending “angry” signals down into the lungs — which can then set off an asthma attack.