Let’s Talk About…Asthma

It wasn’t that long ago that parents were told that their children’s asthma was psychosomatic, or in their head. Or they were told the opposite, that they had to protect their children from everything, lest their asthma kick in. Thankfully, we know that both are not true, although there’s a kernel of truth (albeit a small one) in both.

“It’s all in your head.”

This was a particularly common idea when it came to asthma. Likely, this came to be because asthma can be exacerbated, made worse, by physical or psychological stress. The stress doesn’t cause the asthma, but it can cause the body to react in such a way that the airways start to constrict, close up.

As well, most usual day-to-day activities don’t cause asthma, not even many extreme activities. What they can do, again, is to exacerbate the asthma, but not to cause it to begin with.

The Airways

Asthma is a chronic lung disease. You can’t have “a touch” of asthma; you either have it or you don’t. You can’t outgrow it either. You may stop having attacks and may go years without ever having a problem with your breathing, but it could come back at any time if and when your body is somehow stressed.

Asthma affects people of all ages, but, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, “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.”

Think about drinking through a straw. If you start sipping a milk shake through a thick straw, you can drink it quite well. But try it again with a thin straw and you’ll see that it becomes more difficult.

Now, imagine your airway as a straw. Your air is going in and out without any problem. But, if your airway narrows, either due to mucus along the lining or the muscles twitching and tightening up around it, the air will have a much more difficult time to pass through. That’s what asthma is like. The airways are constricted limiting the amount of air that is going in and out of the lungs.

What Causes Asthma?

Researchers don’t really know what causes asthma but research is on-going. Obviously, if they could pinpoint a cause, it could be easier to treat or manage. In the meantime, this is what researchers do know:

You are at risk of developing asthma if:

• Your parents have asthma
• You’ve had certain types of lung infections as a child
• You have a tendency towards allergies
• Your parents smoked around you, exposing you to second-hand smoke

Signs and Symptoms

Many people have asthma but don’t know it. They feel that their cough is just a chronic cough, for example. But here are the signs and symptoms of the disease. Keep in mind that these symptoms don’t mean that you DO have asthma, they are just guidelines that you may use to discuss the issue with your doctor.

Coughing. Coughing from asthma is often worse at night or early in the morning, making it hard to sleep.

Wheezing. Wheezing is a whistling or squeaky sound that occurs when you breathe.

Chest tightness. This may feel like something is squeezing or sitting on your chest.

Shortness of breath. Some people who have asthma say they can’t catch their breath or they feel out of breath. You may feel like you can’t get air out of your lungs.

People who are suspected to have asthma will have to undergo some tests, such as a lung function test, to get a final diagnosis. A test like a lung function test isn’t difficult. It involves blowing into a device as long as you can to see how much air you can hold in your lungs and how effectively you can get it out.

What can trigger an asthma attack?

Just about anything can trigger an asthma attack or flare up, depending on the person. For some people, it’s exercising too hard without resting while for others, it’s catching a cold. Every person with asthma needs to find out what his or her specific triggers are so they can either avoid them, if it’s possible, or be able to manage them before they cause a serious flare.

Prevention

Because we don’t know why exactly asthma starts, we can only reduce the risks as much as we can, like not smoking around children. Other than that, the prevention lies in preventing flare-ups. This means knowing and understanding what exactly causes your asthma attacks and trying to avoid them or manage them as these triggers come up.

The other very important issue is to take your medication as prescribed and as needed. Because asthma doesn’t seem so bad when you’re not living through a flare-up, it’s easy to get very casual with your preventative medications; that is until you have another attack.

If, for some reason, you feel you don’t need your medications any more, you must speak with your doctor first, before discontinuing your treatment. This way, your doctor will be able to tell you if you’re doing well enough to stop or if the medication is doing such a good job, that you’re well controlled. If the latter is the case, the worst thing you could do is stop taking your medication; it will just cause you problems.

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Part of the Let’s Talk About… Series

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