Asthma Symptoms

Asthma symptoms can be recognised generally by breathing problems such as excessive coughing, wheezing, chest tightness and shortness of breath. To understand these asthma symptoms it is important to be aware that asthma is a non-contagious chronic lung condition caused by a tightening of the airways of the lungs; which leads to the breathing problems, together with the production of extra mucus. These asthma symptoms can bring about an asthma attack, which may last just a few minutes, but can persist over several days.

Asthma symptoms do have genetic factors which influence the development of the asthma, exposure to certain environmental factors may contribute significantly to the risk of developing the condition. Once somebody has breathing problems which is diagnosed as asthma, and they have exposure to some kinds of environmental factors, it often leads to further breathing problems and other asthma symptoms; thus increasing the likelihood of suffering an asthma attack.

Asthma symptoms differ from chronic bronchitis or other lung diseases and varies a great deal from person to person. Indeed, even the same persons asthma symptoms can fluctuate dramatically from one time to another. Asthma symptoms range from mild to moderate to severe and can in extreme circumstances, be life threatening. There are certain warning signs when experiencing breathing problems, of an impending asthma attack. These can occur hours or days before audible wheezing begins. Once again, there will be a contrast with each individual, but include:

Light wheezing, Coughing pain, A tight feeling in the chest, Breathing problems, Raised pulse rate, Restlessness and Low energy levels.

Much to the frustration of many patients, Doctors often seem to conveniently blame breathing problems on viruses, but to be fair, with regard to asthma symptoms it is probably true. They are also inclined to categorise asthma into one of two groups - extrinsic and intrinsic; but there is often an overlap of the two. Extrinsic asthma symptoms tend to start in childhood, come and go and are usually triggered by external factors such as pollen. Intrinsic asthma symptoms seem to start later in life, there are no specific triggers, except for the common cold and can lead to the development of tiny non-malignant growths in the nose called nasal polyps.

Although enormous advances have been made in the management of asthma symptoms and research will continue to strive towards further improvements for sufferers; unfortunately at this time asthma cannot be cured. Due to the nature of the condition, some people can mistakenly think that they have overcome the complaint, when they can go into a form of remission for a period of months, even years without any asthma symptoms. Regrettably, once you’ve had asthma you will always have a tendency to have it again; therefore you are always at some degree of risk. However, good management of asthma symptoms can allow a perfectly normal, good quality life style.