Archive for the 'CONTROLLING & LIVING WITH ASTHMA' Category

Acute asthma is defined as an acute exacerbation of wheezing, showing lack of responsiveness to effective therapy and necessitating emergency care.

Acute asthma is characterized as airway narrowing and inflammation, hyperinflation, impairment of pulmonary function, alveolar ventilation alterations and hypoxaemia.

In acute asthma, your diaphragm and chest walls become exhausted and the ability to adequately ventilate the air sacs in the lungs fall.

Enough oxygen does not get into the blood and therefore excess carbon dioxide cannot be removed.

Acute asthma symptoms:

Symptoms are similar to usual attack like wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath. In acute asthma, symptoms persist and can even change in nature. Acute asthma attack can be frightening to you and the persons around you.

You become quiet and calm and focus on the struggle to breathe. Breathing becomes labored. Wheeze becomes louder, expiration is longer and inspiration is a short harsh gulp. The symptoms continue after using reliever medications or returns quickly after using it.

You may not be able to use peak flow and trying it under these circumstances can often make asthma worse. When situation worsens, your airways become clogged and air movement lessens.

The correct to approach to asthma management is dependent on using the correct anti-inflammatory asthma drugs with broncho-dilators which are necessary for immediate and occasional relief of asthma symptoms.

Two types of asthma drugs: Anti-inflammatory medications and broncho-dilators.

Anti-inflammatory medications are preventers which are used to treat the inflammation caused by exposure to inducers.

Broncho-dilators are relievers used to relieve broncho-constriction which is provoked by triggers.

Anti-inflammatory asthma drugs:

If you want to manage asthma symptoms, you have to use anti-inflammatory medications which work on long-term. Anti-inflammatory asthma drug works by interfering with the activity and chemistry of immune cells such as mast cells which cause inflammation in the airway walls. Anti-inflammatory asthma drug also helps rest the airway muscles that narrow and constrict during broncho-spasms.

Anti-inflammatory asthma drugs prevent and reduce swelling, inflammation and mucus in the airways. They also stop the symptoms such as wheeze, cough and breathlessness. They should be taken on regular basis and are slow acting.

There are two types of anti-inflammatory asthma drugs: steroidal and non-steroidal. The most common steroids include beclomethasone, flunisolide, fluticasone and budesonide. The non-steroids include sodium cromoglycate and nedocromil.

Corticosteroid inhalers:

Acid reflux may worsen asthma.

If you are suffering with acid reflux, find out how it is worsening the symptoms of asthma.

Asthma is a chronic condition that is characterized by difficulty in breathing due to the contraction of airways.

During asthma attack, your airways become swollen and irritated and causes increased resistance to air flow.

According to the research, asthma symptoms may worsen when stomach acid rises up to your throat, which is commonly called as gastro esophageal reflux disease (GERD) or acid reflux.

GERD is a frequent irritation and inflammation of the esophagus caused by back up of acid from the stomach. The esophagus is a narrow tube that connects the throat to the stomach. Acid reflux reach high up the throat causing swelling and discomfort and results in acid asthma reflux.

Acid reflux can cause painful heartburn which can be relieved with antacid medications. Antacid medications are used to neutralize the acids. Acid reflux can happen in people who are overweight and older. But it can happen in kids also.

In some studies, acid is injected into the throat of people with asthma and it had significant impact on asthma and made symptoms of asthma worse.

The main factor for asthmatics is overweight because excess fat puts extra strain on the heart and lungs.

For this reason, overweight people who are diagnosed with asthma are advised to start asthma diet to improve their health condition.

Diagnosis of asthma in addition to being overweight prevents many people from doing exercise, so a healthy high calorie asthma diet should be followed before starting any exercise.

Start Asthma Diet With Following Suggestions:

• Eat more lean meat or fish in your meals.
• Avoid processed foods, fried and fatty foods.
• The amount of sugar intake such as candy and biscuits should be cut down.
• Eat a piece of fruit instead of snacks if you feel hungry.
• Eat smaller amounts throughout the day instead of large meals.

Asthma diet should include foods which have high concentrations of natural anti-histamines and anti-inflammatories. These are beneficial to the airways leading to the lungs as they reduce small amounts of swelling and inflammation and lining of airways can be protected from irritants.

Asthma Diet With Natural Anti-Histamines And Anti-Inflammatories:

• Include apples and red onions as they contain bioflavonoid called quercetin which is a potent anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant.

If you are suffering with asthma, there are many allergens and irritants that trigger your asthma.

When your asthma is triggered, you feel the symptoms such as difficulty in breathing, tightness in the chest, wheezing and even an asthma attack [Asthma Triggers].

Not every allergen will affect you.

You have to find out which allergen triggers your asthma by keeping a journal that describes the asthmatic events you have.

Entry in the asthma journal should list where you were and what you were doing at the time of attack.

If you follow the asthma journal, you can link the activities or locations that trigger your asthma and from this you can find out which allergen triggered your condition. For example, you may find that going to the park irritates your asthma which indicates a plant agent may be responsible.

If you sit in a friend’s garden and it has affected your breathing, then you can workout that the allergen from plant is affecting your breathing and you can avoid the places where these allergen triggers your attack.

A small number of people who are suffering with asthma don’t have a specific allergen that triggers their condition but around 90% of people with asthma do have specific allergen.

People are more likely to be affected by altitude sickness with asthma attacks.

General climate and altitude does not affect your asthma attacks if your condition is stable and symptoms well controlled.

If you are fit and healthy, you should have no problems coping with high altitudes provided that you lead slowly and recognize and accept your limitations and adjusting with your medications.

Pressurized inhalers may not work properly in cold conditions. Before using, you have to warm them. The conditions at high altitudes are often dry and cold and these conditions can worsen asthma attacks.

If you are triggered with asthma attacks by cold conditions, you should find that high altitudes are a problem as the air temperature usually decreases at high altitudes.

One more important thing that causes asthma attacks is climbing which is a very exhausted workout that may cause exercise induced asthma. But, if your asthma attacks are triggered by house dust mites, then your symptoms improve as at high altitudes house dust mites cannot survive. There are many asthma triggers that can worse your condition.

Many people think that asthma is a respiratory problem which affects the lungs, throat and nose, exercise or any physical activity rise the heart rate and may cause them to suffer from number of asthma symptoms and cannot be used as asthma cure.

That’s why people think that asthma and exercise do not go together.

The main symptoms of asthma include difficulty in breathing and tightness in the chest.

It is necessary to experiment how much exercise you can tolerate for asthma cure.

Asthma and exercise:

• Exercise is important for asthma cure, but you must start off gently. You start with gentle walk on fine weather as exercise in cold weather may do harm than good. Slowly you can increase the distance and try to walk faster so that your heart rate increases slightly each time.
• If you have mild asthma, you can swim or jog rather than walk and you can add minutes to your daily work routine until you begin to feel that it is affecting your breathing. Exercise helps to stay in shape and helps in asthma cure.

Peak flow meter is a small device which shows how well you are breathing. It is a simple, portable, inexpensive device that measures airflow. It helps to monitor what is going on in the body. You can use peak flow meter at home to measure lung function.

A peak flow meter helps in determining airway changes and managing asthma attack. There are two different types of peak flow meters known as low and standard range. Low range peak flow meter is designed for children and standard peak flow meter is designed for adults.

How to use a Peak Flow Meter?

Take a deep breathe and blow hard into the tube to find out how fast you can blow out. This gives a peak flow number. Repeat this three times and record the best of the three trials.

All three measurements should be same to show that a good effort was made each time. You have to find out your personal best peak flow number by recording the peak flow number daily for few weeks until asthma is under control. The highest number you get during that time is your personal best peak flow.

There are number of alternative treatments available for asthma relief. The commonly used alternative treatment for asthma relief is ayurveda.

Ayurveda comes from two Sanskrit words: ayur, which means life and veda which means knowledge. Therefore, combined it is defined as knowledge or science of life.

Ayurveda has been used to treat many chronic diseases including asthma for positive asthma relief.

Ayurveda uses natural herbal and mineral remedies in addition to other forms such as exercise program, diet, breathing, meditation and yoga exercises.

Ayurvedic practitioner will examine your history and lifestyle to find out the causes of asthma and provide asthma relief. After examining, the practitioner will prescribe ayurvedic asthma treatment each of which should be followed for the positive results.

The ayurvedic treatment will depend on three conditions:

• An irritated throat with a feeling of dryness that affects bronchial tubes leads to decrease in circulation of air around the lungs.
• Excessive lubrication may lead to over-production of mucus and clogging of bronchial system.
• Abundance of toxins is created by over-reactive bronchi which clogs the bronchial system leading to difficulty in breathing and excessive thirst.

After finding out the symptoms, treatment for asthma relief includes diet, exercise and nutritional supplements.

Exercise induced asthma is the common cause of asthma attack.

In exercise induced asthma, some types of exercises are worse than others.

If you are doing different types of exercises that use the same amount of oxygen, some exercises will cause more chest tightness or wheeziness than others.

If you prefer running outside, then it is usually worse than swimming. Swimming is the best exercise for exercise induced asthma patients because it usually causes very less amount of chest tightness.

The asthma will be worse if the air you breathe during exercise is cold and dry. The asthma will be less bad if the air is warm and moist. This is the reason why swimming causes less asthma than running outdoors.

Some people may get worsening of asthma symptoms from chlorine fumes from swimming baths. People who are allergic to chlorine fumes suffer worse asthma symptoms than running.

How much time you are exercising is important as it takes about six minutes of exercising to trigger exercise induced asthma and less than this time may not be enough to trigger asthma.