Asthma affects a great multitude of people around the world. Combining the expense of missed work and the resulting loss of productivity with missed school days the total reaches the billions of dollars each year in America, alone.
Asthma is categorized as a reversible airway disease, meaning that symptoms generally improve after treatment and that the compromised airway can be restored to functional status. Therefore, managing symptoms is the key to success and reduced exacerbation or "attacks".
Causing inflammation, excess mucus production, and spasm in the walls of the airway, asthma can have a variety of symptoms, each of which can, and usually will, be different from person to person. Let's review a few of these symptoms and their causes.
Inflammation - Inflammation causes a reduction in airway diameter. This causes difficulty in breathing and increases the turbulence in the airflow through that airway, which, ironically, causes more inflammation.
An interesting fact that helps you put things into perspective on the difficulty you are experiencing when this occurs is this:
If you were to take an airway that is one inch in diameter, give it a healthy dose of inflammation until it becomes half its size, or one half inch in diameter, you have, obviously, just increased your difficulty in breathing significantly.
It would make sense, looking at the numbers, to say that your difficulty would now be 50% greater than before, but this is not the case. In reality, it has just become 16 times more difficult for you to move air through that airway. Talk about a change!
Mucus Production - The walls of our airways are lined with cells specifically designed to excrete mucus. This mucus is present for our own good, and under normal circumstances would be considered an ally.
It helps trap foreign objects such as dust or foreign particles when it senses their presence and hold them while the cilia (little hairs that line our airways) move that glob of particle trapped mucus up toward our larger airways to be coughed out. A perfect system... unless the mucus is released as a consequence of triggers you are exposed to as a cause of your asthma, lung irritation, or other lung disease.
If you take into consideration the inflammation that has most likely already taken place in the airway, compound it with this mucus excretion, you have just decreased your airway diameter even more, and now you have "stuff" to cough up.
Spasms - Now let's talk about spasms. Airway spasms are uncontrollable quivering of our airways, which cause you to cough. Now, this "quivering" does not have to be very large at all in order for you to feel it greatly. Sometimes they are very, very small but still carry with them a strong consequence.
The coughing that the quivering causes increases air turbulence. This air turbulence, also mentioned above, increases irritation in the airway, which increases inflammation and mucus production, which causes additional irritation, which can cause more spasms, which increases air turbulence, which starts the entire cycle over again. You can see why symptom management is so important.
There are many things done for symptom management. Avoiding your triggers is the first thing you should do. If you aren't familiar with or haven't been able to "nail down" your symptoms, keep trying to do so. It is a continual work in progress, as triggers can change depending upon the time of year, air quality and environment (both indoor and outdoor), and your ability to avoid them.
Next, take your medications, as prescribed. Don't skip doses, or stop taking them if you begin to feel better. Many medications are used to maintain your open airway, and you will only notice how much they help when you quit taking them, which, obviously, can cause problems. Keep your rescue breather with you at all times.
Keep it in your purse, your backpack, your glove box, your brief case - whatever is most convenient for you - just keep it. You never know when you may be exposed to a new or worsening trigger. Medications can achieve a common goal, but use different doors to do so. We can liken it to your house - you have a back door, a front door, and likely a garage or side door.
You can get "into the house" by using any door, but each door uses a different route to take you there. Medications are the same way. In this case, they all work to "open" your airways, but there are several different paths they can take in doing so, such as calming the spasms, decreasing mucus production, or decreasing inflammation. All three maintain the integrity of the airway, all three do so in a different way.
If you have had asthma for a number of years or experience strong symptoms (and really, even if you haven't and even if you don't), you should be extremely familiar with your medications and triggers, and should have in place an asthma action plan. An action plan is exactly that - your plan of action in case of worsening conditions.
This plan should be done with the assistance of your healthcare provider, whether it be a respiratory therapist, a trained nurse, or your physician - all of which should be asthma certified. Included in that plan should be all of your medications, when and how to use them, including how often, and when to call your physician or seek medical attention.
It should be outlined specifically and leave very, very little room for question as to what you should do and how you should proceed in the various levels of severity (green zone, yellow zone, red zone) as your exacerbation progresses.
The phrase "very little" can be used because in dealing with each individual situation will be somewhat different, and unique, like a fingerprint. No symptoms or attack are exactly alike. There is always enough room for a little extra "surprise" issue to creep into even the best thought out and well executed plans.
Last, but not least, be familiar with your action plan. Hang it in a place where you can get to it easily. Keep an extra copy in your wallet. Make loved ones aware of what your plan is, where it is, where your medications are, and what you need in case you need help. Asthma prevention is symptom prevention.
Be prepared. Know your triggers. Know your plan. Have your medications. And, of course, breathe, and smile. You got this!
Asthma is a serious airway disease that cannot be taken lightly, but must be monitored treated. The symptoms need to be controlled. It is vital to understand what your triggers are, what your medications are, and what you need to do in case of an emergency.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dawn_Fielding
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