The Underlying Causes of Asthma Symptoms

If you deal with asthma or have encountered friends and family that experience asthma then you are well aware of the intensity of asthma attacks. Asthma attacks can be scary if you don’t understand their cause as well as their treatment. Therefore, you need to understand the underlying causes of asthma symptoms.

What are typical asthma symptoms?

Asthma symptoms include having trouble breathing, coughing, and feeling as though an elephant sat on your chest. The main question is what causes these asthma symptoms? These asthma symptoms are caused by a constriction of your airways. Basically, asthma is a chronic disease that occurs in your lungs.

What exactly happens to your airways?

Let’s first look at normal breathing in healthy lungs in a nutshell. The breathing process begins by inhaling air through your mouth and nose. This air then travels down your bronchi with part of it going into your left lung and the other air goes into your right lung. The air in your lungs continues to go through a maze of bronchial tubes. Oxygen from the air you breathe is then absorbed into your blood stream and you exhale carbon dioxide. In healthy lungs, this process occurs unrestricted.

Now let’s look at how your airways react when you have asthma. If you have asthma your airways become irritated and constrict. This causes the muscles around your bronchial tubes to tighten. Your airway is restricted and leads to congestion, edema, and airway obstruction.

Airway congestion involves mucus and fluids that love to stay in your airways and set up camp. This extra mucus and fluid can make it hard to breathe. Airway edema involves the accumulation of fluids in your airways. Essentially, your airway swells thus making it difficult to breathe. All these factors lead to the asthmatic symptoms of wheezing, coughing, tight chest, and persistent chest colds. Plus, asthma sufferers may have one or more of these conditions to deal with.

Asthma can also be caused by airway hyper-responsiveness. This means that the inflammation of the airway is also plagued by the muscles surrounding the bronchial tubes. These muscles tend to twitch and over tighten. This is usually experienced when an asthma sufferer is exposed to a harmful irritant. Their chest will spasm and can be extremely uncomfortable.

Asthma airways can also become restricted by the presence of allergic irritants such as dust mites and pet dander. These irritants cause histamines and leukotrienes to be released in your body. This release can constrict your airways. This can cause wheezing and chest spasms.

The major underlying problem with asthma is that your airways become inflamed and stay that way unless you take medications or change your environment. The severity and frequency of asthma symptoms can vary from individual to individual. Unfortunately, asthma is a life long condition that will need to be monitored. You can keep track of your asthma symptoms to help you and your doctor create an asthma management plan. Keeping up to date on new asthma treatments and medications is also a great way to provide the best life possible.