What Is Asthma?

“Asthma” is a lung condition that afflicts 23 million people in the United States, including more than 6 million children. In asthma, the bronchial tubes, the passages that bring air into the lungs, become swollen and inflamed. The swelling can cause coughing, wheezing (a type of breathing characterized by a whistling noise during inhale or exhale), shortness of breath, and difficulty breathing.

What causes asthma? Experts aren’t exactly sure, but they do know that a combination of genetics and a sensitivity to certain triggers such as allergens, infections, secondhand smoke, and even exercise can lead to asthma. And they know for certain that you can’t catch asthma from someone else—it’s not a communicable disease.

What is “asthma”?

Asthma makes it hard for your child to breathe. It causes swelling and inflammation Click here to see an illustration. in the airways that lead to the lungs. When asthma flares up, the airways tighten and become narrower. This keeps the air from passing through easily and makes it hard for your child to breathe. These flare ups are also called asthma attacks or exacerbations.

Asthma affects children in different ways. Some children only have asthma attacks during allergy season, when they breathe in cold air, or when they exercise. Others have many bad attacks that send them to the doctor often.

Even if your child has few asthma attacks, you still need to treat the asthma. If the swelling and irritation in your child’s airways isn’t controlled, asthma could lower your child’s quality of life, prevent your child from exercising, and increase your child’s risk of going to the hospital.

Even though asthma is a lifelong disease, treatment can control it and keep your child healthy. Many children with asthma play sports and live healthy, active lives.
What causes asthma?

Experts do not know exactly what causes asthma. But there are some things we do know:

* Asthma runs in families.
* Asthma is much more common in people with allergies, though not everyone with allergies gets asthma. And not everyone with asthma has allergies.
* Pollution may cause asthma or make it worse.

What are the symptoms?

Symptoms of asthma can be mild or severe. When your child has asthma, he or she may:

* Wheeze, making a loud or soft whistling noise that occurs when the airways narrow.
* Cough a lot.
* Feel tightness in the chest.
* Feel short of breath.
* Have trouble sleeping because of coughing and wheezing.
* Quickly get tired during exercise.

Many children with asthma have symptoms that are worse at night.
How is asthma diagnosed?

Along with doing a physical exam and asking about your child’s symptoms, your doctor may order tests such as:

* Spirometry. Doctors use this test to diagnose and keep track of asthma in children age 5 and older. It measures how quickly your child can move air in and out of the lungs and how much air is moved. Spirometry is not used with babies and small children. In those cases, the doctor usually will listen for wheezing and will ask how often the child wheezes or coughs.
* Peak expiratory flow (PEF). This shows how fast your child can breathe out when trying his or her hardest.
* A chest X-ray to see if another disease is causing your child’s symptoms.
* Allergy tests, if your doctor thinks your child’s symptoms may be caused by allergies.

Your child needs routine checkups so your doctor can keep track of the asthma and decide on treatment.
How is it treated?

There are two parts to treating asthma. The goals are to:

* Control asthma over the long term. To do this, use a daily asthma treatment plan. This is a written plan that tells you which medicine your child needs to take. It also helps you track your child’s symptoms and know how well the treatment is working. Many children take controller medicine—usually an inhaled corticosteroid—every day. Taking controller medicine every day helps reduce the swelling of the airways and prevent attacks.
* Treat asthma attacks when they occur. Use an asthma action plan, which tells you what to do when your child has an asthma attack. It helps you identify triggers that can cause your child’s attacks. Your child will use quick-relief medicine, such as albuterol, during an attack.

Using an inhaler with a spacer Click here to see an illustration. is the best way to get the most medicine to your child’s lungs. But your child has to use the inhaler correctly for it to work well. If you are not sure how to use the inhaler the right way, ask your doctor to show you how.

If your child needs to use the quick-relief inhaler more often than usual, talk to your doctor. This is a sign that your child’s asthma is not controlled and can cause problems.

Asthma attacks can be life-threatening, but you may be able to prevent them if you follow a plan. Your doctor can teach you the skills you need to use your child’s asthma treatment and action plans.
What else can you do to help your child’s asthma?

You can prevent some asthma attacks by helping your child avoid those things that cause them. These are called triggers. A trigger can be:

* Irritants in the air, such as cigarette smoke or other air pollution. Try not to expose your child to tobacco smoke.
* Things your child is allergic to, such as pet dander, dust mites, cockroaches, or pollen. Taking certain types of allergy medicines may help your child.
* Exercise. Ask your doctor about using an inhaler before exercise if this is a trigger for your child’s asthma.
* Other things like dry, cold air; an infection; or some medicines, such as aspirin. Try not to have your child exercise outside when it is cold and dry. Talk to your doctor about vaccines to prevent some infections, and ask about what medicines your child should avoid.

It can be scary when your child has an asthma attack. You may feel helpless, but having a daily treatment plan and an asthma action plan will help you know what to do during an attack. An asthma attack may be severe enough to need urgent medical care, but in most cases you can take care of symptoms at home if you have a good asthma action plan.
Asthma can be managed with a variety of medications, and by avoiding triggers such as pollen, pets, or other allergens.

What Is Asthma?
Asthma (AZ-ma) is a chronic (long-term) lung disease that inflames and narrows the airways. Asthma causes recurring periods of wheezing (a whistling sound when you breathe), chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughing. The coughing often occurs at night or early in the morning.

Asthma affects people of all ages, but it most often starts in childhood. In the United States, more than 22 million people are known to have asthma. Nearly 6 million of these people are children.

Overview
The airways are tubes that carry air into and out of your lungs. People who have asthma have inflamed airways. This makes the airways swollen and very sensitive. They tend to react strongly to certain substances that are breathed in.

When the airways react, the muscles around them tighten. This causes the airways to narrow, and less air flows to your lungs. The swelling also can worsen, making the airways even narrower. Cells in the airways may make more mucus than normal. Mucus is a sticky, thick liquid that can further narrow your airways.

This chain reaction can result in asthma symptoms. Symptoms can happen each time the airways are irritated.

Sometimes symptoms are mild and go away on their own or after minimal treatment with an asthma medicine. At other times, symptoms continue to get worse. When symptoms get more intense and/or additional symptoms appear, this is an asthma attack. Asthma attacks also are called flareups or exacerbations.

It’s important to treat symptoms when you first notice them. This will help prevent the symptoms from worsening and causing a severe asthma attack. Severe asthma attacks may require emergency care, and they can cause death.

Outlook
Asthma can’t be cured. Even when you feel fine, you still have the disease and it can flare up at any time.

But with today’s knowledge and treatments, most people who have asthma are able to manage the disease. They have few, if any, symptoms. They can live normal, active lives and sleep through the night without interruption from asthma.

For successful, comprehensive, and ongoing treatment, take an active role in managing your disease. Build strong partnerships with your doctor and other clinicians on your health care team.

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When a person with asthma comes into contact with something that irritates their airways (an asthma trigger), the muscles around the walls of the airways tighten so that the airways become narrower and the lining of the airways becomes inflamed and starts to swell. Sometimes sticky mucus or phlegm builds up which can further narrow the airways. The illustration on the right shows a cross section of the airways, with and without inflammation.

All these reactions cause the airways to become narrower and irritated – making it difficult to breath and leading to symptoms of asthma.

5.4m people in the UK are currently receiving treatment for asthma.
1.1m children in the UK are currently receiving treatment for asthma.
There is a person with asthma in one in five households in the UK.

What is Asthma – Video

Asthma is a disease affecting the airways that carry air to and from your lungs. People who suffer from this chronic condition (long-lasting or recurrent) are said to be asthmatic.

The inside walls of an asthmatic’s airways are swollen or inflamed. This swelling or inflammation makes the airways extremely sensitive to irritations and increases your susceptibility to an allergic reaction.

As inflammation causes the airways to become narrower, less air can pass through them, both to and from the lungs. Symptoms of the narrowing include wheezing (a hissing sound while breathing), chest tightness, breathing problems, and coughing. Asthmatics usually experience these symptoms most frequently during the night and the early morning.

Asthma Statistics
More than 22 million people — and some 6 million children — have asthma. Everyday in the United States:

•40,000 people will miss school or work because of asthma
•30,000 people will have an asthma attack
•5,000 people will visit the emergency room because of their asthma
•1,000 people will be admitted to the hospital because of asthma
•11 people will die due to asthma

Asthma Definition
Asthma is a chronic lung disease that causes episodes of difficult breathing. This is primarily due to constriction, tightening of the muscles surrounding the airways, and inflammation, soreness, swelling and irritation of the airways in the lungs.

Asthma?
Have you, or someone you know, been diagnosed with asthma? If so, you probably have lots of questions.

You may wonder, for example, just what asthma is. The medical definition of asthma is simple, but the condition itself is quite complex.

Doctors define asthma as a “chronic inflammatory disease of the airway” that causes the following symptoms:

Shortness of breath
Tightness in the chest
Coughing
Wheezing
Asthma has no set pattern. Its symptoms:

Can be mild, moderate or severe
Can vary from person to person
Can flare up from time to time and then not appear for long periods
Can vary from one episode to the next
The cause of asthma is not known, and currently there is no cure. However, there are many things you can do so you can live symptom-free.

Breathing: Normal Airway Versus Asthma Airway
In someone with normal lung function, air is inhaled through the nose and mouth. It passes through the trachea (also called the windpipe) before moving into the bronchi (large airways), which are branching tubes leading away from the trachea. The bronchi branch into smaller and smaller tubes, ending in many small sacs called alveoli. It’s in the alveoli that oxygen, which the body needs, is passed to the blood, while carbon dioxide, which the body doesn’t, is removed from it.

People with asthma often have trouble breathing when they’re in the presence of what are called “triggers.” When someone with asthma has asthma symptoms, it means that the flow of air is obstructed as it passes in and out of the lungs. This happens because of one or both of the following:

The lining of the airways becomes inflamed (irritated, reddened and swollen), and may produce more mucous. The more inflammation the more sensitive the airway becomes, and the more symptoms.
The muscles that surround the airways become sensitive and start to twitch and tighten, causing the airways to narrow. This usually occurs if the inflammation is not treated.
Both of these factors cause the airways to narrow, making it difficult for air to pass in and out of them.

The airways of someone with asthma are inflamed, to some degree, all the time. The more inflamed the airway the more sensitive the airway becomes. This leads to an increase in breathing difficulty.

Asthma Can Affect Anyone
Asthma is a chronic condition, meaning it needs to be monitored and controlled over a lifetime.

Anyone can get asthma, although it’s usually first diagnosed in young people. Currently, about three million Canadians have asthma.