Symptoms in asthmatics can vary tremendously between patients with each person having their own unique mix of symptoms including the severity and how often or how frequently they affect the sufferer.

To some, asthma is an occasional feeling of tightness in the chest and a cough, but for others the attacks can be so severe that they can become life threatening.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease that makes airways (bronchial tubes) particularly sensitive to irritants, and this is characterized by...

• A restriction of the air passages in the lungs causing breathing difficulties due to increased resistance to airflow.

• Rapid changes in airway restrictions.

• The effects can be significantly reversed using drugs that resemble adrenaline.

• Significant reversibility of the restriction problems with steroid drugs.

• Symptom-free periods, where the patient feels and act fine.

• Frequent occurrence of allergies.

• Bronchial hyper-responsiveness (air being breathed in) to non-specific stimuli such as cold air or histamine.

The symptoms of asthma include:

• Coughing that may become worse at night or first thing in the morning causing sleep disruption. Sometimes this is the only sign of asthma in a child.

• A wheezing or whistling sound when you breathe, especially when you have a cold or other illness.

• A tightness feeling in the chest, as if someone is squeezing your chest.

• A feeling that you have a shortness of breath.

• Faster or noisy breathing.

Asthma symptoms can be triggered, by factors including exercise such as running or biking, especially during cold weather, prolonged crying or laughing or when exposed to allergens and irritants.

All asthmatics will not have these symptoms; those that do will notice that they may vary from one asthma attack to another and in severity. Attacks can vary from the mildly annoying, to those that are serious enough to prevent what you want to do and they can even be so serious that they are life threatening and you need to get urgent medical attention.

Symptoms also differ in how often they affect you, some patients have attacks daily whereas others have problems once a week or month. With the correct treatment and management, most asthmatics can expect to have minimal symptoms and can lead active, normal lives.

About the author: Mike Herman
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