Asthma: What Causes It and How to Treat It?
Asthma is a widespread disease today. It can affect anybody, irrespective of age or sex. It is a kind of inflammatory disease. It is found that children and elderly people are affected by the disease mostly. In wintertime, it is very common to find people suffering from wheezing, excessive bouts of coughing and difficulty in breathing.
Causes of Asthma
Asthma occurs as a result of inflammation of the airways. Environmental factors play an important behind this affliction. It is believed that genetic factors also play a certain role in the process. These factors determine the specific medication that is prescribed depending upon how severe that the problem is. However, a comprehensive detail about the relationship between the causes of asthma and the symptoms of asthma is yet to be established.
The causes of asthma therefore can be many - Environmental, Genetic, Gene- environmental interactions etc.
What are the symptoms of asthma?
Asthma may be a temporary problem cured through medication and lifestyle changes or life long depending upon the severity of the affliction. In case of sever disruption of airflow it might even prove fatal.
The recognizable symptoms are-
Who is affected?
1. If expectant mother smokes during pregnancy, she is possibly risking the baby’s health. There are so many instances where the baby or a toddler seems to affected by asthma-like symptoms.
2. The medical science considers polluted air from traffic pollution or high ozone levels as one of the many causes of asthma.
3. Exposure to Germ –negative bacteria is also thought to be the cause of asthma. Therefore people prone to dust allergy may develop asthma problems as well.
4. Viral respiratory infection not only increases chances the risk of developing asthma in young children.
5. Severe Stress is also one of the many reasons of asthma. However, it is thought that stress is indirect reason to affect anyone with asthma.
6. Excessive usages of Antibiotics are linked to the development of asthma by medical science as it weakens immune system to an extent.
8. Chemicals in air in winter season increase the chance of asthma.
Asthma medication
There are several ways to treat asthma and selecting the right treatment plan. is crucial as it is a life long disease mostly.
To prevent asthma – This medication system helps to minimize the potential damage caused by asthma. Here the medication is needed daily .The most of asthma preventers are made of corticosteroids, one type of steroid. Here patients are directed to take steroids as tablets. For children there are non-steroids such as cromoglycate.
However, there are considerable side effects of this medication including dizziness, nausea, heart –beat, muscle trembling etc.
To relieve asthma – Patients use asthma relievers to minimize the effect at night mainly. Salbutamol and terabutaline are common and widely used medicine. However, this medication system is not also without symptoms like constipation, dry mouth etc. Any severe symptom should be reported to the medical expert.
Inhaled asthma medication - Puffers, Dry powder inhalers, spacers, and nebulisers are part of inhaled asthma medication.
Other medication treatment - Antagonists eukoteriene receptor and steroids can be taken in pill form to prevent asthma.
Some immediate steps to prevent asthma-
- • Keep yourself away from the trigger that causes asthma.
- • Loosen up your clothing to breath easily
- • Take puff on inhaler, nebulisers etc as emergency preventive
- • If nothing works call ambulance to get admitted to hospital.
