Variable symptoms of asthma are unique to each individual because there are so many varying degrees. The difficulty in diagnosing allergy asthma is because many of the general symptoms are a duplicate of other symptoms with other diseases and disorders. Identifying the true cause is often tedious and extremely time consuming. The same process is in repeat when the medical physician is trying to ascertain which allergy is causing conflict. The same symptoms occur with other respiratory infections and in certain heart conditions.
Mild asthma sometimes is difficult to control with beta-2 agonists, and in these cases corticosteroids are an addition. Corticosteroids can improve lung function and reduce the airway obstruction over a shorter period of time. To decrease the deposition of medications on the throat from asthma inhalers, and increase the amount reaching the airways, spacers can be a helpful aid. These spacers are tube like chambers attached to the outlet of the MDI inhaler canister.
Mild asthma also includes the combination inhaler therapy which is new on the market today. The medications included with this combination inhaler are Advair and Symbicort which is a big improvement in the release of certain chemicals in the lungs like the family of histamine. This is with the additive of cromolyn sodium which works to prevent asthma attacks but has a very limited effect once acute asthma begins.
Diagnostic testing is the only way the medical physician can pinpoint the identifying cause and the individual must try to remain patient because this will take time to diagnosis. There are a variety of patch tests the medical physician will conduct, but with each patch test there is a time delay of anywhere from a few days to a week. Similar to the tuberculosis testing that is in many states through a patch test. Keeping this malady in mind there are four allergy asthma symptoms that are generally in recognition and they are:
- Shortness of breath, particularly when exertion is involved.
- Wheezing with a whistling or hissing sound when breathing out.
- Coughing, sometimes chronic coughing, worsening at night.
- Tightness in the chest occurring without provocation.
Milder symptoms of asthma are generally much more common. These individuals will have periods of time throughout every day when they experience signs of breathing inability and that is when they will take out their inhaler, if they have one, to alleviate the causes of asthma before it progresses any further. It is at this particular time that it becomes vitally important to tend to the mild symptoms rather than ignoring them. When the individual chooses to ignore the mild symptoms of asthma they run the risk of experiencing coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, and tightness of the chest for the next few hours until it all subsides.
Individuals must receive an individual initial assessment including all the risks that are involving the treatment of asthma. The individual suffering with asthma and those who experience frequent asthma attacks need to meet with their medical physician and discuss what is going right and what is going wrong in order to improve the treatment of asthma and the outlook of the individual. Individuals need to understand that this is a potentially deadly disease. Asthma in any of its forms, though not a terminal disease, is still a deadly disease. Many before of all age groups have died from the ravages of asthma because the medical attention it receives today was absent from daily life before.
Planned follow-up scheduled visits are of course necessary with the medical physician for the medical physician to assess how the current asthma medication is performing or if any additional changes are in order. Remember the side effects of asthma in general do change, as the individual grows older. Other complications may also begin to set in such as arthritis and even this may have an effect on the current asthma medication taken.