Asthma Symptoms And Relief Vapor Rubs

Asthma is a common long-term condition that can cause a cough, wheezing, and breathlessness. The severity of the symptoms varies from person to person. Asthma can be controlled well in most people most of the time. Asthma is a chronic lung disease where a patient have difficulty in breathing easily. This happens due to some kind of obstruction in the flow of air in the lungs. Asthma can either be acute or chronic. Some of the common causes of asthma are allergy, air pollution, respiratory infections, sulfites in food and certain medications. Common symptoms associated with asthma are coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath and chest tightness.


What is asthma?
Asthma is caused by inflammation of the airways. These are the small tubes, called bronchi, which carry air in and out of the lungs. If you have asthma, the bronchi will be inflamed and more sensitive than normal. The inside walls of an asthmatic's airways are swollen or inflamed. This swelling or inflammation makes the airways extremely sensitive to irritations and increases your susceptibility to an allergic reaction.

To understand asthma, it helps to know how the airways work. The airways are tubes that carry air into and out of your lungs. People who have asthma have inflamed airways. This makes them swollen and very sensitive. They tend to react strongly to certain inhaled substances.

When the airways react, the muscles around them tighten. This narrows the airways, causing less air to flow into the lungs. The swelling also can worsen, making the airways even narrower. Cells in the airways might make more mucus than usual. Mucus is a sticky, thick liquid that can further narrow the airways.

The following are the four major recognized asthma symptoms:
• Shortness of breath, especially with exertion or at night
• Wheezing is a whistling or hissing sound when breathing out
• Coughing may be chronic, is usually worse at night and early morning, and may occur after exercise or when exposed to cold, dry air
• Chest tightness may occur with or without the above symptoms

This chain reaction can result in asthma symptoms. Symptoms can happen each time the airways are inflamed. Sometimes asthma symptoms are mild and go away on their own or after minimal treatment with asthma medicine. Other times, symptoms continue to get worse. When symptoms get more intense and/or more symptoms occur, you're having an asthma attack. Asthma attacks also are called flareups or exacerbations (eg-zas-er-BA-shuns). Treating symptoms when you first notice them is important. This will help prevent the symptoms from worsening and causing a severe asthma attack. Severe asthma attacks may require emergency care, and they can be fatal.

Asthma is caused by inflammation in the airways. When an asthma attack occurs, the muscles surrounding the airways become tight and the lining of the air passages swell. This reduces the amount of air that can pass by, and can lead to wheezing sounds.


Pollutants and allergens in the home can trigger asthma attacks. Even in very clean homes, certain things in the air can cause a child, or an adult, to have an asthma attack. Some of these triggers are obvious, but others are not often associated with asthma. These asthma triggers include:

• Pollen and dust
• Cockroaches and cockroach debris
• Dust mites
• Pet dander
• Some drugs
• Paint fumes
• Perfume
• Mold
• Some pesticides
• Certain foods
• Some cleaning chemicals
• Environmental tobacco smoke (secondhand smoke)

Not everyone will react to the same cause in the same way. Some things will cause an asthma attack in one person but not in another. In addition, other events can cause asthma attacks. These events include emotional stresses or sudden changes in humidity or temperature.

 What happens during an asthma attack?
• The muscles around your airways tighten up, narrowing the airway.
• Less air is able to flow through the airway.
• Inflammation of the airways increases, further narrowing the airway.
• More mucus is produced in the airways, undermining the flow of air even more.

In some asthma attacks, the airways are blocked such that oxygen fails to enter the lungs. This also prevents oxygen from entering the blood stream and traveling to the body's vital organs. Asthma attacks of this type can be fatal, and the patient may require urgent hospitalization.

Asthma attacks can be mild, moderate, severe and very severe. At onset, an asthma attack does allow enough air to get into the lungs, but it does not let the carbon dioxide leave the lungs at a fast enough rate. Carbon dioxide - poisonous if not expelled - can build up in the lungs during a prolonged attack, lowering the amount of oxygen getting into your bloodstream.

Prevention is always the best strategy. A person with asthma should know what situations prompt an attack, such as exposure to allergens, respiratory infections and cold weather, and to avoid these situations whenever possible. If asthma attacks are severe, unpredictable or flare up more than twice a week, then asthma treatment with a long-term control medication is recommended. Long-term medications are preventive, taken daily and can achieve and maintain control of asthma symptoms.

What kind of medicines do we have to treat asthma?
Asthma symptoms appear when the bronchi are narrowed. To improve this narrowing there are medicines called relievers, because they ‘relieve’ discomfort when dilating bronchi. When they are used, its effect is soon noticed, generally between three and five minutes, although it disappears in a few hours.  They do not have a preventive action, they just relieve the symptoms because they ‘open the bronchi’ transiently but do not act on inflammation and therefore, they do not control asthma.


To reduce inflammation and make less sensitive bronchi, you have to continuously take medications to control airway inflammation (anti-inflammatory). These medications have to be used during sustained periods, are safe and easy to use. They only work while they are taken, are administered every day and are used according to the severity of the disease and are modified according to the control of the symptoms achieved.

The child and his family have to know how every medication acts in the child that takes the medication and how to take it. They have to make sure the child has got the ‘relievers’ and that takes ‘controllers’ regularly. Pacting with its doctor an strict plan to know how to use every medication and when to ask for medical attention.

Because inflammation of the lungs and airways plays a critical role in asthma, the most effective medications for long-term control have anti-inflammatory effects. Various forms of anti-inflammatory medication are available and should be discussed with a physician.

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