Asthma is a serious health problem. It is the most common long-term childhood disease and affects one out of every fifteen children in U.S alone. Asthma is a disease that afflicts both young and old. All over the world, every year, new cases of people suffering from this disease continue to rise. Despite the advancement in technology, people can still die from asthma attacks. There is no cure to asthma, anyone can get the disease especially if its runs in the family. Asthma has no cure yet, but you there are ways manage the disease and avoid the worst case scenario.

What is Asthma?

People who have asthma experience spasms in the bronchial that cause difficulty in breathing. Spasms usually occur, as a result, of an allergic reaction to something or hypersensitivity to allergens. A person coming in contact with allergens causes the bronchial tubes to swell and constrict, leaving them almost breathless. If you want to know more about asthma, what is asthma continue reading.

Asthma can cause not just breathlessness but also wheezing, coughing and chest tightness. If you have asthma, you can experience asthma attacks anytime, day or night. Whenever something triggers the attack or irritates your lungs.

How Asthma Diagnosed?

It is hard to tell from just looking if a person has asthma or not, more so for children below the age of 5. The best thing to do when you are showing signs of asthma is to consult your doctor so you can manage the disease. A doctor can help you find out your health condition, whether you have asthma or not.

What are the usual questions doctors ask? They ask about your living condition, work and the symptoms you are experiencing. They will also conduct a breathing test to find out the health condition of your lungs using the spirometry. A spirometry is mouthpiece used for counting how much air you breathe out every time you take a deep breath.

Asthma Attack

Asthma attack can occur anytime for there is no timetable when you can experience an attack. Most people experiencing asthma attack comes in contact with allergens that cause the bronchial to constrict badly. Severe asthma attack can sometimes lead to death when not treated immediately.

Asthma attack restricts the air in and out of the lungs so mucous clogs up your airway. You need to free up the airway to get relief and to avoid going to the hospital.

By the way, triggers for each patient of asthma are different. Some people are hypersensitive to tobacco smoke, dust and many more.

How Asthma Affect Your Breathing

Asthma affects breathing in a big way as asthma attack can cause narrowing of your breathing airways. You see, it is important that the normal movement of air remains the same for the lungs, anything leave you breathless. Narrowing of airways occurs when there is an inflammation, hyperactivity and bronchospasms.

If you have asthma you need to be aware of the symptoms of asthma to avoid going to the hospital. But most importantly you need to know how to manage or control your asthma. You are living in a world that exposes you every day to allergens or trigger.

On my next post, I’ll be talking more about how asthma affects your breathing and the type of triggers that causes asthma attack.