What is ASTHMA?
A1. Asthma is a disease of the lungs in which the airways become blocked or narrowed causing breathing difficulty. This chronic disease affects 20 million Americans. Asthma is commonly divided into two types: allergic (extrinsic) asthma and non-allergic (intrinsic) asthma. There is still much research that needs to be done to fully understand how to prevent, treat and cure asthma. But, with proper management, people can live healthy and active lives.
Asthma is a disease that affects your lungs. It is one of the most common long-term diseases of children, but adults have asthma, too. Asthma causes repeated episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and nighttime or early morning coughing. If you have asthma, you have it all the time, but you will have asthma attacks only when something bothers your lungs. In most cases, we don’t know what causes asthma, and we don’t know how to cure it. We know that if someone in your family has asthma, you are also more likely to have it. You can control your asthma by knowing the warning signs of an attack, staying away from things that trigger an attack, and following the advice of your doctor or other medical professional. When you control your asthma: • you won’t have symptoms such as wheezing or coughing, • you’ll sleep better, • you won’t miss work or school, • you can take part in all physical activities, and • you won’t have to go to the hospital.
Asthma is a chronic disease affecting the airways that carry air into and out of the lungs. People with asthma have sensitive airways that become irritated and swollen when certain “trigger” elements, like pollen and pet dander, enter their airways. In an asthma flare-up, the tissues in the airways become inflamed, there is a mucus build up, and muscles tighten around the airways. The effects are usually temporary and can be controlled by a good asthma management plan, but in severe cases a person may need emergency treatment to restore normal breathing patterns.
Asthma is an inflammatory disease of the airway. As a result of this inflammation, the airways become blocked or narrowed because of swelling, muscular contractions and mucous production. These effects are usually temporary, but they cause shortness of breath, breathing trouble and other symptoms. If an asthma attack is severe, a person may need emergency treatment to restore normal breathing. More than 15 million people in the United States have asthma. This health problem is the reason for nearly half-a-million hospital stays each year. People with asthma can be of any race, age or sex. Its treatment costs billions of dollars each year. Despite the far-reaching effects of asthma, much remains to be learned about what causes it and how to prevent it. Although asthma can cause severe health problems, in most cases treatment can control it and allow a person to live a normal and active life.
Asthma is best described by its technical name: Reversible Obstructive Airway Disease (ROAD). In other words, asthma is a condition in which the airways of the lungs become either narrowed or completely blocked, impeding normal breathing. However, in asthma, this obstruction of the lungs is reversible, either spontaneously or with medication. Quickly reviewing the structure of the lung: air reaches the lung by passing through the windpipe (trachea), which divides into two large tubes (bronchi), one for each lung. Each bronchi further divides into many little tubes (bronchioles), which eventually lead to tiny air sacs (alveoli), in which oxygen from the air is transferred to the bloodstream, and carbon dioxide from the bloodstream is transferred to the air. Asthma involves only the airways (bronchi and bronchioles), and not the air sacs. The airways are cleaned by trapping stray particles in a thin layer of mucus which covers the surface of the airways. This mucus is produced by glands
