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.