Asthma: What You Should Know

There are cases when asthmatic individuals suffer from permanent respiratory distress, which finally becomes chronic. But there are also patients who have only intermitting asthma attacks with periodic signs of acute severe asthma, which are accompanied by respiratory infection, inhalant allergen, acute situational reaction, different air pollutants or even physical activity. Generally the physicians identify the following asthma symptoms: asphyxia, dyspnea, coughing, tightness of chest and pain in it. Some patients who have the similar signs and characteristics may be down but with other disease known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The acute condition of asthma is usually called asthma attack. Regularly the clinical signs of asthma attack are short wind (dyspnea) and wheezing. Pathological whizzing while breathing called stridor serves as the determining factor and thus the sine qua non of asthma disease. Nevertheless a number of asthmatic individuals have only coughing and the breathing can be impaired without wheezing. The ictus of the disease may be abrupt followed by the sense of compression in the chest. The breathing becomes heavy with wheezing on exhalation (though stridor may occur in both respiratory phases).
Besides to the asthma symptoms belong also such clinic signs as prolonged exhalation, abnormally rapid beating of the heart (tachycardia), restricted breathing with wheezing (which can be heard through a stethoscope), paradoxical pulse (a pulse during inspiration differs from the pulse while exhalation) and in addition the abnormal inflation of the chest.
During the strong asthma attack the patient may become blue because of the oxygen deficit (the physicians also call it blue bloaters). Sometimes such symptoms may lead to pain in chest and it can happen that the sufferer may lose consciousness. Other patients complain of numbness in upper and lower limbs. Severe asthma attacks very often result in respiratory failure and thus death. In the intervals between severe asthma attacks the disease may run absolutely insidious, i.e. without the obvious symptoms. So the sick should undergo thorough medical examination for any signs of status asthmaticus.
There is no certain reason for asthma disease since it may be either extrinsic or intrinsic asthma. So as the scientists have proved, the disease may develop due to different environmental or genetic factors and it is very important to identify the fruitful cause of the disease in order to institute the right therapy. The wrong medication may bring on additional symptoms or even cause the aggressive clinical behavior of the disease.