Asthma is a chronic disease involving the airways in the lungs. These airways, or bronchial tubes, allow air to come in and out of the lungs.
If you have asthma your airways are always inflamed. They become even more swollen and the muscles around the airways can tighten when something triggers your symptoms. This makes it difficult for air to move in and out of the lungs, causing symptoms such as coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath and/or chest tightness.
For many asthma sufferers, timing of these symptoms is closely related to physical activity. And, some otherwise healthy people can develop asthma symptoms only when exercising. This is called exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB), or exercise-induced asthma (EIA). Staying active is an important way to stay healthy, so asthma shouldn't keep you on the sidelines. Your physician can develop a management plan to keep your symptoms under control before, during and after physical activity.
According to the leading experts in asthma, the symptoms of asthma and best treatment for you or your child may be quite different than for someone else with asthma.
The most common symptom is wheezing. This is a scratchy or whistling sound when you breathe. Other symptoms include:
Asthma symptoms, also called asthma flare-ups or asthma attacks, are often caused by allergies and exposure to allergens such as pet dander, dust mites, pollen or mold. Non-allergic triggers include smoke, pollution or cold air or changes in weather.
There are various specialist of doctors are there who treat asthma are allergists, pulmonologist, ENT specialist, and Paediatrician. The chest examination is the most important examination for a treatment in asthma. There are various methods are used for asthma diagnosis Such as Spirometry, methacholine challenge and it can be identified by analysis of expiratory flow rate. Spirometry is one of the recommended tests for asthma. The bronchodilator like salbutamol is used to identify the FEV1 level. Methacholine challenge is an inhalation of substance that causes narrowing the airway. If the result is negative means, that person doesn’t have asthma and if positive means the person has asthma.