Top Seven Questions About Asthma Answered

If you or a loved one has asthma, you’re probably curious about why your body reacts the way it does. Many people have asthma for years without fully understanding the disorder because they are afraid to ask their doctors for answers. If you’re confused about the basics of asthma, here are the top seven questions about asthma answered.

1. How can I prevent asthma attacks?

This is probably the most pressing question because, even though you can treat an asthma attack, it’s far more convenient not to have one at all. While there is no foolproof way to prevent them, there are a few things you can do to stave them off as often as possible. First, make sure you take your medication as recommended by your doctor. This will reduce inflammation in your airways and will reduce your chances of having an attack. One missed dose, however, can prove critical.

If your asthma is caused by an allergy, you should do whatever you can to avoid coming into contact with it. For example, if you are allergic to pollen, stay indoors when the pollen is covering your street. Stay away from known irritants like cigarette smoke, smog, pet dander and dust, and purchase an air purifier if your find that your symptoms occur at home.

2. Why does my asthma medication induce attacks?

Some unlucky asthma sufferers have learned that certain asthma medications can actually cause attacks rather than prevent them. This is because the patient is allergic to the components of the medication, such as NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) or to aspirin. If this is the case, you will need to talk to your doctor about alternative medications, both for asthma and for regular aches and pains. Unfortunately, the same components can be found in Motrin and Aleve.

3. What are the side effects of bronchilators?

Side effects of bronchilators are generally mild, but asthma sufferers should be aware of them. First, rapid heart rate is the most common side effect, and may last for several hours following a dose from the bronchilator. You might feel a slight pounding in your chest that can be alarming, but is generally benign. Headaches are also common side effects, which can last for up to twenty-four hours, and you might develop nervousness or paranoia. The good news is that these side effects usually diminish over time as your body gets used to the medication.

4. Can I take asthma medication when I’m pregnant?

If you are pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant, you might be worried about the effects your asthma medications might have on your unborn child in-utero. This is a common fear since doctors advice pregnant women to avoid most medications during pregnancy. However, if you were to have an asthma attack, you could cause unnecessary stress for your baby, sometimes sufficient to induce miscarriage. Talk with your doctor about your concerns, but in most cases, the benefits of taking your asthma medication far outweigh the risks.

5. How can I avoid an asthma attack during and after exercise?

Many asthma sufferers avoid exercise entirely because they are worried about an attack. The reality, however, is that your body needs exercise, so your best bet is to do all you can to prevent an attack. Warm up slowly before exercising and get your body prepared for the work-out. You might also want to take an inhaled asthma medication before you head out to exercise. When you are finished, allow your body to slowly cool down by stretching or taking a slow walk. Never just STOP.

6. What if there are irritants at work that induce asthma attacks?

This is another common worry for asthma sufferers, and unfortunately it is a real possibility. Workplace environments are rife with irritants and substances that can worsen asthma, so you’ll need to take precautions with regard to occupational asthma. Talk to your doctor about any occupational therapy that might help to control and suppress your asthma symptoms.

7. What should I do if I have an asthma attack?

An asthma attack occurs when your airway experiences bronchospasms, which tighten the airways and make it difficult to breathe. This is sometimes compounded by a panic attack, which is common during the first few asthma attacks you experience. When you feel yourself start an attack, you should follow the instructions on your asthma medication immediately. If you think that you are in danger for your life -- especially if you have blue fingernails -- you should dial 911 for emergency medical attention.

Asthma care shifts focus to control disease

Only one in five children with asthma has the disease under good control, sobering findings that are helping to fuel a shift in care.

The change: A stronger focus on day-to-day symptoms, not just the bad attacks, so that more of the 20.5 million Americans of all ages who have asthma can breathe easier without limiting their activities.

Federal guidelines due this summer are expected to urge doctors to more closely monitor whether treatment is truly controlling everyday symptoms and improving patients’ quality of life — and to adjust therapy until it does.

Already, a campaign is under way to teach patients to recognize they need better help, and how to convey that to a doctor. If the doctor’s happy that you’ve had no flare-ups but doesn’t know you had to quit playing soccer to do it, you’re not achieving good control.

Too often, physicians don’t realize how severe symptoms are, says Dr. Jill Halterman, a pediatric asthma specialist at the University of Rochester. With children, their own parents may underestimate symptoms.

It’s more complicated than denial: When wheezing while running or waking up at night coughing has been routine for years, people may not know to complain.

“It may be part of what they view as normal,” says Halterman, who is studying the control gap. “We’re hoping we can change that so the goal can really be for the child to have no symptoms and no limitations on activities.”

That’s the goal for adults, too, as specialists shift from asthma’s severity as the chief treatment guide to this broader goal of asthma control, adds Dr. Allan Luskin of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

“They can live normal lives but it takes work,” says Luskin, who is working with the Asthma and allergy Foundation of America’s new patient campaign. “Patients and doctors need to understand that asthma can be controlled and we really ought to expect nothing less.”

No cure
Asthma is a chronic lung disease caused by inflammation inside airways that in turn makes them super-sensitive, narrowing in response to irritants that wouldn’t bother a healthy lung. The result: recurring episodes of wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and difficulty breathing. Attacks can be triggered by numerous things — breathing someone’s cigarette smoke, exercise, cold air, stress, viruses — but roughly 60 percent are triggered by allergens.

There is no cure. But there are very effective daily medications that reduce inflammation and prevent flare-ups, especially if people also minimize their exposure to environmental triggers. Yet asthma still kills more than 4,000 people a year, and causes 2 million emergency room visits and half a million hospitalizations.

Many are children, and Halterman took a closer look at why. She analyzed almost 1,000 asthma sufferers culled from a federal study of child health in Alabama, California, Illinois and Texas.

Some 37 percent had not been prescribed preventive medication despite current guidelines, a long-recognized problem.

The surprise: 43 percent did have those medications, yet still experienced persistent symptoms, more than one attack in the last three months, or both.

“This is a group that has been largely neglected in the past because we’ve done our thing — prescribe the appropriate medications and the hope was the child should do well,” Halterman explains. “At that point, still much more needs to be done.”

Only some of the control gap can be explained by skipping doses. To address that, Halterman has begun a study in Rochester, N.Y., schools to see if children fare better when school nurses give them their morning asthma medicine than when they have to remember to take it at home.

Also, secondhand smoke overwhelms asthma medicine’s protection, she found.

The challenge is how to find those patients who follow the rules yet still don’t achieve good asthma control, so they can get a timely treatment change.

Time for change
This summer, an expert panel established by the National Institutes of Health is to update national guidelines on asthma care — and while they’re still being finalized, the latest draft suggests that challenge will take center stage. Among the steps under consideration are for doctors to closely assess patients’ control every few months, looking for vital clues: Have you missed any work or school because of asthma? Changed any of your activities? Sleeping worse?

That’s the kind of frank exchange the asthma foundation campaign aims for patients to spark now.

“I learned early on you have to be an advocate for your child,” says Leslie Ayres, whose 8?-year-old son Kenneth plays hockey and football in the brutal cold North Pole, Alaska, despite serious asthma.

Kenneth struggled to run without wheezing for several years, until at age 7 his parents found a doctor who ordered more aggressive treatment. As his lung function improved, so did his laps around the ball field.

The newer hurdle is teaching Kenneth to use his rescue inhaler at the first sign of trouble. Winded during hockey tryouts recently, he hesitated — “I felt kind of embarrassed,” Kenneth explains — and got a frank lecture that asthma can kill.

“Now I know you have to take it when you need it.”

Mediterranean Diet Helps Protect Children from Asthma

A newly released study has found that children who eat a mediterranean diet have increased protection from asthma and allergies that affect the respiratory system.

Researchers from three different countries, Spain, Greece and the U.K, carried out the study. The subjects of the study were children that lived in rural parts of the Greek island of Crete. There were nearly 700 children studied. These living conditions were chosen because children in these rural Create areas have a low incidence of asthma and other respiratory allergies.

The study discovered a few significant features in the diets of the children. It was found that the children ate a diet that contained a lot of fruit and vegetables and these foods helped to protect the children from the respiratory conditions.

The specific organisations involved in the research were the National heart and Lung Institute in the U.K, Crete’s Venezelio General Hospital, the University of Crete and Barcelona’s Research in Environmental Epidemiology.

Researchers specifically studied the children to see how often the symptoms of asthma occurred. Reactions such as wheezing and allergic rhinitis were documented. These reactions are generally caused by allergies to pets or dust mites.

A questionnaire was also used to study the eating habits of the children. Both, children between the ages of 7 and 18 and their parents were asked questions about the children’s eating habits. There were 58 foods considered from various food groups. These groups were: fruits, fish, cereal, vegetables, meat, dairy, poultry, oils and margarines. The children and parents were asked to say how often they ate each type of food on the list.

The results of the questionnaire showed that 80 percent of the children consumed fresh fruit twice daily. It also found that two-thirds of the children ate fresh vegetables twice daily.

Around 300 of the children were found to have some kind of protective affect against allergic rhinitis and wheezing. In these children it was found that they ate certain foods on a daily basis. These foods included; tomatoes, grapes, oranges and apples. Eating nuts at least three times a week also appeared to give protection against wheezing. Both nuts and red skinned grapes contain nutrients that help fight damaging free radicals. Nuts contain vitamin E which protects cells against free radicals and red skinned grapes contain antioxidants and resveratrol. Reseveratrol helps reduce inflammation.

Nuts are also an excellent source of natural magnesium, a mineral believed to improve the capabilities of the lung and protect against asthma.

The assistant director of Asthma UK, Leane Male, said, "The results of this study add to the existing evidence which indicated that a healthy diet can play an important role in the control of asthma symptoms. They demonstrate that the Mediterranean diet, which traditionally contains higher levels of fresh fruit and vegetables, can have a beneficial effect on asthma symptoms in children."