Self Care for Asthma

You are the important part of your asthma treatment team. You should learn how to manage and try to prevent the symptoms of the asthma. This can be done by avoid or control the effects of asthma by knowing the things that cause the asthma symptoms in your day to day life.

You can avoid the causes of the asthma in your day to day life by practicing several things on your own and maintaining the overall health and to lessen the possibility of asthma attacks.

These includes the following

• Exercise: Practicing regular exercise will strengthen the heart and the lungs so that you can minimize the work of these organs. Try to exercise 30 minutes a day. And try not to exercise in cold temperatures because this may trigger symptoms of the asthma.

• Use of Air conditioner: Being in the air conditioned room will help to lessen the amount of flying pollen from trees, grasses and weeds that finds its way indoors

• Clean up your décor: Try to avoid the items that may trigger the symptoms of asthma in your bedroom. This can be done by enclosing the pillows and mattresses in a dust proof covers. Instead of using carpets you can go for hardwood flooring.

• Maintain optimal humidity: Try to keep the humidity low in your home and in your working area. Because humidity also causes the triggers of asthma.

• Reduce pet dander: Try to avoid pets with fur or feathers

• Clean Regularly: Try to keep your home clean so that your place will be dust free thus you can reduce the triggers of asthma.

• Control heartburn and Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD): Acid reflux may cause the heartburn which may inturn damage the lung airways and the cause the symptoms of asthma.

Prevention of Asthma

Try to avoid the things that cause the allergens and respiratory irritants. These allergens include house dust, feathers, mites, cockroaches etc., by reducing these allergens the attack of the asthma can be controlled to the large extent. Irritants such as cigarette smoke must be avoided. In some of the peoples, aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may trigger the attacks. Try to avoid these drugs. Intake of low dietary antioxidant nutrients such as vitamins A, C, and E, selenium etc., can increase the risk for lung damage. Adults may avoid asthma attack in the workplace by staying away from chemicals that irritate the lungs.

The Following points will help you prevent the Asthma Attacks

• Try to avoid the dust and stuffed animals.

• Try to control the cockroaches by using the insect sprays because the cockroach is the major allergy trigger in asthma attacks.

• Try to use airtight allergy proof plastic cover on mattresses and pillows.

• Stuffed animals must be washed using hot water.

• Try to keep your indoor humidity low because the dust mites and mold increase in high humidity.

• Try to avoid the smoky environment.

• Try to avoid the use of ceiling fans.

• Try to avoid strong odors and sprays in the home.

• Try not to go outside when pollution or ozone counts are high.

Complications of Asthma

Asthma may vary depending on the frequency and severity of the attacks. Asthma affected peoples may show the signs of cough and wheeze and this may increase after a viral infections, exercise, and exposure to cigarette smoke. Asthma usually attacks in the early morning hours when the body is least able to prevent bronchoconstriction. Peoples are affected by asthma finds difficultly in breathing, coughing, and will suffer from chest tightness.

Some of the Complications includes the following

• Breathing difficulty.

• Hospitalization.

• Asphyxia.

• Lack of sleep due to nighttime symptoms.

• Repeated bouts of asthma attacks without respite.

• Cardiac arrest.

• Permanent changes in the function of the lungs.

• Pneumothorax.

• Pectus carinatum.

• Short stature.

• Eosinophilia.

• Decreased ability to exercise and take part in other activities.

• Respiratory failure.

• Pulsus paradoxus.

• Bronchospasm.

• Chest hyperinflation.

• Chest expansion poor.

• Persistent cough.

• Missed school.

• Death.

Causes of Asthma

Things that cause asthma attacks are called triggers. Triggers are everywhere.

Any home can be full of triggers like mold, dust mites secondhand smoke, cockroaches, cats and dogs. Other asthma triggers may be air pollution (such as ozone, small particles, and pollen), foods, respiratory infections and exercise.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory lung disease caused by an allergy. To be more specific, an oversensitivity of the lungs and airways to certain allergens. Most triggers that bring on asthma, such as dust mites, mold, animal dander, cigarettes, and cold temperatures, are found indoors.

Seventy percent of young adults and fifty percent of older adults who have asthma also have allergies. When your system senses these certain triggers, it overreacts, resulting in an asthma attack. What causes your lungs to constrict in response to harmless substances still remains a mystery. Research has shown that this is an abnormality of the lungs and is caused by inflammation of the bronchial tubes.

Signs and Symptoms of Asthma

A patient suffering from asthma might show problems and symptoms with wide range of frequencies. The patient might have occasional asthma attacks with very mild problems of breathing which normally affect for an hour or two and then disappear. this kind of asthma does not require any medications as such but precautions can be taken in order to avoid them. Sometimes asthma is supplemented by chronic coughing and wheezing which occurs just after of before the attacks.

Some of the Signs and Symptoms of the Asthma includes the following

• Breathing with short interval space and combined with wheezing.

• Sleeping problems due to shortness of breadth.

• Simmering chest pain at regular intervals of time.

• Increased use of bronchodilators.

• A steady decrease in peak follow rates of your heart.

About Asthma

The word asthma originated from a Greek word which meant panting. It is a kind of chronic inflammatory disease of the lungs. In asthma disease the air ways narrow or constrict due to inner inflammation of the passages. As a result this produces wheezing and breathlessness in the body.

When a person suffering from asthma takes in air the airways do not relax as in the normal case and instead narrows down as a result of which the person finds it difficult to breathe. This is because the smooth muscles of a person suffering from asthma may is defective due to the absence of a particular chemical which prevents particular muscles from relaxing.

Types of Asthma

Asthma is one of the very common forms of chronic disease among the human population. Out of every twenty people one person shows symptoms of asthma .it is far more prominent among children where the probability is ten is to one. Asthma has been divided into different types depending on the kind of symptoms shown and the place where the anomalies is said to have original.

However not every breathing problem is a symptom of asthma. You first have to rule out other conditions like emphysema which have the same symptoms as asthma. Some of the other symptoms include congestive heart failure and vocal cord problems which are for sure symptoms of asthma but might not necessarily be asthma.

Asthma is Divided into Two Types depending on the Reasons for that condition. They are

1. Bronchial Asthma: Bronchial asthma is the most common form of asthma existent among the human population. As the name defines it is a disease caused obstructive ventilation disturbances of the respiratory passages. Due to this an infected patient feels a shortness of breath. When aggravated it might lead to a characteristic asthma attack, with spasms of the bronchial musculature, edematous swelling of the bronchial wall and increased mucus secretion.

2. Cardiac Asthma: This type of asthma is caused by heart failure and not necessarily by any kind of disorder in the air passage of the body. This kind of asthma is caused because the heart is not able to take in oxygen and pump out carbon dioxide as it normally does. As result the person feels breathlessness and it shows the same symptoms as normal asthma like wheezing and coughing.