So patients who have asthma usually have shortness of breath, wheezing, and
coughing. They have different triggers
that can cause their symptoms. A lot of
patients that I see have allergies as
triggers. So they can have triggers of
dust mites, cats, dogs, molds, or pollens. So asthma has two major components. You have
airway constriction, where your airways
actually closed down and you can also
have inflammation in your airways where
there's swelling of the insides of your airways.
So with asthma you want to avoid what is a trigger for your asthma.
That's number one. Exercise can be a big trigger for a lot of patients and I don't want
to tell patients not to avoid exercise.
So then you usually treat asthma
symptoms with medications. Medications
depend on what type of asthma they have.
If they have mild intermittent asthma,
then they'll just need an Albee Drill
inhaler to use as needed. If they have
persistent asthma then they usually have
to be on an inhaled steroid to get good control their asthma symptoms. Studies have shown
that patients who do allergy shots can
actually prevent symptoms of asthma and
patients who already have asthma their
asthma can get better to the point of
going away with allergy injections.
So children who have asthma can outgrow
asthma. I tend to see children during
puberty their asthma seems to get better
however it will sometimes return in
adulthood. There are patients who will
have asthma for most of their life.
So my expectation is patients with asthma
especially when it's allergy induced
asthma can live a normal life. They
should be able to do all activities that
they want to do and not restrict their activities.
