Asthma made Collingwood AFLW player Amelia Barden think she was unfit.
"I started playing football when I was about 17. At trainings and games, I used to struggle to breathe quite a bit," the 24-year-old said.
"I used to just think I was just really unfit, so I used to get to training early and doing extra running. It really didn't get me anywhere.
"After trainings and games, I used to have a really bad cough. It used to last up to about 24 hours.
"It seems a bit silly that I let it go on for so many years and didn't really do anything about it. It just goes to show that education is such a big part of asthma and educating everyone around us."
Barden, who also works as a nurse, said it was not until she was drafted by Collingwood and sent for a medical check-up that the condition was uncovered.
"I started straight away on a preventer and, literally, within a couple weeks, I had no symptoms," she said.
"So I was fitter than I thought. I didn't have a cough, and I could lead a normal life and play elite sport."
Barden is one of more than two million Australians who have asthma. About 400 die each year from the condition in the country.
But the federal government has a new strategy to help tackle the condition.
AFLW Collingwood player Amelia Barden says her undiagnosed asthma made her feel unfit. Source: AAP
Better co-ordinated health services, prevention and self-management are at the forefront of a plan launched by Health Minister Greg Hunt in Melbourne on Wednesday.
"This is about saving lives ... it's about giving parents and Australians of all ages the chance to manage asthma and have a long, rich, full life," he told reporters.
The federal government is putting $1 million towards an asthma program for school students, teachers and parents, the minister added.
Another asthma sufferer who will benefit from this investment is Alicia Mitchell.
The 25-year-old medical student said the condition had affected her since she was young.
"I was in and out of hospital throughout my childhood, missed a lot of school," Ms Mitchell told SBS News.
"Even in my adult years I've also missed quite a lot of university and work because of asthma.
"And it hasn't just impacted me in my schooling and through work, it's also impacted on me socially and emotionally quite a lot. It has meant that I couldn't do a lot of activities that my peers could do.
"And having a chronic disease does have quite an impact on your emotionally as well."
Ms Mitchell said the government had to make the condition a priority to help the millions of Australians affected.
"It's important that this is a priority for our national health service and for the government and I think that it's great that there's all these initiatives to try and make the asthma treatment more accessible, to try and increase education around this really prevalent disease, and to try and make it so that so many people's lives are not negatively affected by this illness," she said.
Australia had one of the highest rates of asthma in the world but deaths from the condition dropped significantly over the past two decades, data showed.
About 40,000 people were hospitalised for the condition each year, Mr Hunt said.
A freak thunderstorm asthma event killed 10 people in Victoria in November 2016 and a warning system was later introduced to forecast and monitor potential outbreaks.
