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Asthma (pronounced AZ-muh) is described in the book “Essential Allergy”, by Mygind, Dahl, Pedersen, and Thestrup-Pedersen as “A lung disease characterised by: 1. variable and reversible airway obstruction; 2. airway inflammation; and 3. bronchial hyper-responsiveness. Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease that makes bronchial passages that make up one’s airways specifically sensitive to irritants. It is primarily characterized by difficulties of breathing. Asthma is a highly-ranked chronic health condition for adults in a majority of western nations. It is also the leading chronic illness causing problems to children. Asthma cannot be treated. However, most patients can control it so that they suffer only infrequent and minimal symptoms and they can live an active life.
If you suffer from asthma, managing it is an essential part of your life. Controlling your asthma entails shunning things that bother your airways and taking medicines under your doctor’s direction. With everyday asthma control, serious symptoms can be prevented and it is possible to participate in all normal activities. When asthma is not well-controlled, your symptoms may cause you to miss work or school and may keep you from enjoying other activities.
Asthma patients have hyper-responsive or very sensitive airways. An asthma episode, or, in severe cases, an asthma attack happens when a person experiences a worsening of their asthma symptoms. During an asthma attack, the smooth muscles around the bronchial tubes contract, narrowing airway openings, therefore, restricting air flow. As swelling increases, the airways become more swollen and increasingly narrow. Also, cells in the airways overproduce mucus, which further narrows the airways. These airway changes cause the asthma warning signs. It becomes hard for air to pass in and out of the lungs and blood-oxygen levels decrease.
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This narrowing of the air passages is mainly due to different combinations of:
* swelling of the airway lining brought about by airway inflammation
* too much mucus in airways
* contraction of muscles within the air passages
Not all asthma attacks are produced equally. Some are more ruthless than others. In a serious asthma attack, the airways can close to the extent that essential organs do not receive enough oxygen. This situation constitutes a medical emergency. It is possible to die from a acute asthma attack. Suffering from an asthma attack has been compared to the feeling of drowning. Sufferers of an asthma attack describe symptoms such as a tightness in the chest, wheezing or whistling noises in the chest, breathlessness, coughing, and breathing difficulties that occur as the airways become narrowed, inflamed, and blocked by mucus. An asthma attack can flare up without warning. Asthma sufferers, however, learn to recognize those warning signs that signal an attack. These indicators include dizziness, an itchy nose or skin or light-headedness, or an irritating cough. Learning the warning signs is crucial to alert a sufferer to take preventive action, such as medication in time to avoid an attack. Because of this, asthma sufferers should have regular contact with their doctor. They need to educate themselves as to what things cause a worsening of their asthma symptoms and methods to use to prevent them. In addition, your doctor will prescribe medicines to manage your asthma.
In the Western world, about one in thirteen adults and one in eight children have asthma and rates are rising. It can have an effect on anyone, any place, at any age. In the developed world, asthma is becoming increasingly common and is currently the most common chronic condition in the west. Major contributing factors are thought to be aspects of our modern environment such as processed foods, air pollution, and centrally heated, double-glazed houses which are an ideal breeding grounds for house dust mites. Because it is considered a chronic condition, that means that attacks can happen over a long period of time. Although there are times when asthmatics suffer acute episodes, the majority asthma patients report that there are long periods during which they suffer few, if any,symptoms. Asthma can change progressively during the lifetime of the asthma patient. For instance, children may grow out of asthma, but of these, some redevelop asthma at a later age.
Drugs, such as those resembling two naturally-occurring hormones, help asthma. Essentially, these two hormones are adrenaline or, in the United States, epinephrine and the steroid hydrocortisone. There are additional medicines which help treat asthma. Though drugs can eliminate all of the symptoms for a mild asthma sufferer, more severe or long-standing cases of asthma generally do not get such good results. To fight this, alternate medications have been developed. Over time, lifelong asthma sufferers see a reduction in the effectiveness of medications in removing the obstruction of the airways. One of the current treatment objectives is to minimize the inflammation in the lung passages as this is thought to precipitate this long-term decline.
Tagged with: asthma attack • asthma treatment
Filed under: Asthma