Now, that we know something about the causes and symptoms of asthma, let us further discuss steps to prevent and control this disease.
Diagnosis :
Your doctor has a tough job to do for diagnosis and identifying the symptoms. Some diagnosis include
• Checking your family’s history of asthmas and allergies
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• Persistent cold in your chest for more than 10 days.
• Try to identify things that caused you the symptoms or make them worse.
• Closely monitoring and listening your breathing patterns.
• Depending on the severity and other causes, your doctor could use a device called spirometer to check the function of your lungs. This test measures the speed of your breath as well as how much air you can blow out of your lungs after taking deep breath.
You doctor then defines the level of asthma severity in you. There are four basic levels.
• Mild periodical asthma : Episodes of asthma symptoms occur once in a while. It could be once or twice in a month or even less. Apart from this, your lung function is normal
• Mild persistent asthma : Frequency of asthma symptoms are more than twice a week hampering your daily activity.
• Moderate and severe persistent asthma: You have on going symptoms through out the day and night. Your physical activity is also likely to be hampered to a great extent.
Prevention:
While there are many things beyond your reach like your family history of asthma,
You can definitely do certain things to help yourself from symptoms of asthma.
Some common steps are as below:
• Avoid exposure or over exposure to air pollution.
• Quit smoking
• Inhaling tobacco smoke is one of the major reasons for getting asthma.
Chances of baby getting asthma is increased if a pregnant woman is exposed to tobacco smoke. Therefore make sure you are away from tobacco smoke especially your kids.
• Obesity: Control your weight by doing some sort of physical activity as obesity
is linked to asthma along with other health issues.
• Consult your doctor immediately on your first symptoms. Get regular check ups
done and learn steps as to how to effectively control your asthma.
• Follow up the medications regularly as prescribed by your doctor to either
prevent or stop asthma attacks.
• Breathing exercises: You could do simple breathing exercises after taking
advise from your doctor. This will ensure removal of blockages and reduce
inflammation of your airways.
Treatment:
Normally, asthma is treated with two kinds of medicines. a) Quick-relief medicines aiming to stop the symptoms and b) Long-term medicines to prevent these symptoms. Most asthma medicines are inhaled directly going straight to the lungs where it is required. Learn the proper use of inhalers correctly from your doctor.
Small steps can indeed go a long way in preventing you gasping for your breath, which is rightly called the life force.
