Live Life Team
Asthma is something which attacks ones lungs and causes lot of damage in terms of inflammation and swollen airways. The patient starts to witness lot of trouble in breathing and suffocating. The statistics show that almost 1.1m kids in UK are suffering from asthma. Normally it has been noticed that the kids who develop this condition, grow out of the condition with the age. The triggers for these are house dust, mites, animal fur, pollen, tobacco smoke and cold air. Some time chest infections also add to the trouble.
Symptoms
The normal symptoms seen for asthma in kids are a feeling of breathlessness, wheezing, coughing and tightening of the chest. The severity is dependent on the case and varies from person to person. There may also be some observations which may lead to the conclusion, and they include any pulse rate increase, increased wheezing, agitated feelings and drop in peak expiratory flow rate. The severity is shown by the racing pulse and inability to breath, skin around chest and neck tightening.
Causes
The causes are not fully known but may include factors from a wide spectrum. The reasons can include a history of family with the condition, and premature birth, lack of birth weight, exposed to smoking during pregnancy. There are lots of triggers also available to trigger the condition like infection of chest, allergens, and medicines. There are factors like emotions and food with sulphities, which may not be noticed initially.
Diagnosis
The diagnosis is tough since there are other respiratory issues which make it even trickier to detect. The symptoms and examination of chest, sound of breathing can lead in suspicion for asthma. There are tests like Peak expiratory flow rate test which has been the best way to find out the extent of the problem. Excercise induced asthma can also be found out with the questionnaire.
Treatment
The treatment starts with an assessment. Once the pattern and the severity is established, the treatment starts. The child may be put through the medical treatment which is a step by step method including mild intermittent asthma, regular preventer therapy, add-on therapy, persistent poor control, continuous or frequent use of oral steroids.
Prevention
There are lots of areas which can be handled well to avoid the risk of this condition up to the maximum. Smoking should be the top on the chart among the major reasons for the condition. For smoking in close vicinities of kids can leave them quite open to risk of catching the condition. There are vaccinations which can also reduce the risk of any complications related to the condition. The next area should be to avoid the trigger element which would mean to reduce the factors which induce any sort of allergy and can be reduced to maximum, like pollution or a certain weather condition which may make the patient uneasy.
Complications
There are some problems associated which are due to the condition like fatigue, underperformance and also psychological problems like stress, anxiety and depression.
