What is Asthma?
Asthma is a disease of the lungs. The airways of people with asthma are extra sensitive to the things they're allergic to (called allergens) and to other irritating things in the air (called irritants).
Asthma is caused by inflammation in the airways. It is not known why the inflammation occurs. The inflammation irritates the muscles around the airways, and causes them to squeeze (constrict). This causes narrowing of the airways. It is then more difficult for air to get in and out of the lungs. This leads to wheezing and breathlessness. The inflammation also causes the lining of the airways to make extra mucus which causes cough and further obstruction to airflow.
Warning signs and symptoms of asthma
Sucking in skin above breastbone and between ribs.
Decreases in your child's usual or predicted peak flow or poor performance on pulmonary function tests.
Coughing, either during the day or at night, but often worse at night and with exercise and activity.
Chest pain occurs in about three-quarters of patients. It can be very severe, although the pain's intensity is not necessarily related to the severity of the asthma attack itself.
Moderate persistent - Includes daily attacks and nighttime symptoms more than once a week. More severe attacks occur at least twice a week and may last days. Attacks require daily use of quick-relief (rescue) medication and changes in daily activities.
Neck area and between or below the ribs moves inward with breathing.
Gray or bluish tint to skin, beginning around the mouth.
Shortness of breath (dyspnea). Shortness of breath is a major source of distress in patients with asthma. However, the severity of this symptom does not always reflect the degree to which lung function is impaired. Some patients are not even aware that they are experiencing shortness of breath. Such patients are at particular risk for very serious and even life-threatening asthma attacks, since they are less conscious of symptoms. Those at highest risk for this effect tend to be older, female, and to have had the disease for a longer period of time.
Asthma is characterized by inflammation of the bronchial tubes with increased production of sticky secretions inside the tubes. Not all children with asthma wheeze. Chronic coughing with asthma may be the only obvious sign, and a child’s asthma may go unrecognized if the cough is attributed to recurrent bronchitis.
Rapid breathing is a common asthma symptom. When breathlessness occurs, you may try to breathe faster to try to get air in and out of your lungs.
A fall in peak flow rates as measured by a peak flow meter, a simple and inexpensive device that allows you to monitor your own lung function. To use a peak flow meter, you will first need to find out your "personal best" peak flow. Take a deep breath and blow as hard as you can into the mouthpiece. Your personal best is the highest reading you get on the meter over a 2-week period when your asthma is under good control.
Rarely, the small air sacs of the lung (alveoli) may rupture, allowing air to accumulate in the space between the membrane layers covering the lungs and inner chest wall (the pleural space). This complication (pneumothorax) greatly worsens the shortness of breath; often a chest tube needs to be inserted into the affected pleural space to drain the air and re-expand the collapsed lung.
