Occupational Asthma

Have you ever heard of occupational asthma? If not, you may want to become more familiar with it; especially if you think that it is affecting your performance at work. Generally speaking, occupational asthma comes from a trigger at your place of employment. Obviously, for some people this is much more common than others. There are many jobs where people are around common asthma stimulants, and of course, many more where people simply sit in an office all day. But if you notice that your asthma is only occurring when you are at work, there is a good chance that you could be suffering from what is known as occupational asthma.

Here are three ways that you can figure out if you are suffering from occupational asthma. Although these are not the only things to look for, it is safe to say that this is a good place to start.

1. Asthma is triggered by specific situations that cause inflammation in the airways. So obviously, you should keep an eye out for this happening when you are at work and at work only. If you have no problems at home, but begin to have difficulty when you get to work, it is safe to say that occupational asthma may be your problem. Work is the situation that is causing you to have an asthma attack.

2. Do you have sudden attacks upon arriving at work? Once again, this is something that you need to keep track of. Many people have a hard time diagnosing occupational asthma because they never put two and two together. By simply charting when your attacks occur, you will have a much better chance at determining whether or not it is work related.

3. When you are exposed to a certain trigger, your asthma will get worse. The key to figuring this out is to determine what this trigger is. While it may take you some time, with the help of your doctor you should be able to get to the bottom of the situation.

There are two types of occupational asthma that you should be aware of. First off, you can suffer from aggravation of an existing asthma condition. This is most common, but still something that you should figure out.

Another type of occupational asthma is caused by an outside irritant. This is something that you are exposed to at your place of work, and upon inhaling your symptoms begin to act up.

Overall, occupational asthma is something that you should take seriously. If it causes major problems for you, there is a good chance that you will have to change jobs. After all, you do not want to make yourself ill everyday that you go to work!