The airways section

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease that makes air passages (bronchial tubes) specifically irritant-sensitive. It is characterized by difficulties of breathing. Asthma is a highly ranked chronic health condition in adults in many western countries. It is also the leading chronic disease in children.

Asthma has no treatment. However, for most patients the symptoms can be managed so that they suffer only infrequent and minimal symptoms and can live an active life. There are a number of illnesses, however, which can mimic asthma symptoms and that results in a misdiagnosis.

Read how this person cured his asthma the natural way

One example of an illness that is ordinarily misdiagnosed as asthma is vocal cord dysfunction syndrome the symptoms of which can mimic an asthma attack. Normally, the difficulty in making an asthma diagnosis is making it early enough.

However, sometimes in persons who do truly have asthma as well, difficulty in breathing can result from abnormal movements of the voice box during breathing.  This can so closely mimic a rigorous asthma attack that a proper diagnosis is made very hard. However, if this condition is recognized, appropriate treatment is much easier to attain.

There are a number of other illnesses that can mimic asthma signs, though in comparison to asthma, these are all very rare, and they are also much rarer than vocal cord dysfunction.

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Filed under: Asthma