What Are Common Asthma Attack Triggers
An asthma attack happens when someone comes in contact with substances that irritate them. Healthcare providers call these substances triggers. Knowing what triggers your asthma makes it easier to avoid asthma attacks.
For some people, a trigger can bring on an attack right away. Sometimes, an attack may start hours or days later.
Triggers can be different for each person. But some common triggers include:
- Air pollution: Many things outside can cause an asthma attack. Air pollution includes factory emissions, car exhaust, wildfire smoke and more.
- Dust mites: You cant see these bugs, but they are in many homes. If you have a dust mite allergy, they can cause an asthma attack.
- Exercise: For some people, exercising can cause an attack.
- Mold: Damp places can spawn mold. It can cause problems for people with asthma. You dont even have to be allergic to mold to have an attack.
- Pests: Cockroaches, mice and other household pests can cause asthma attacks.
- Pets: Your pets can cause asthma attacks. If youre allergic to pet dander , breathing in the dander can irritate your airways.
- Tobacco smoke: If you or someone in your home smokes, you have a higher risk of developing asthma. The best solution is to quit smoking.
- Strong chemicals or smells.
With asthma, you may not have all of these symptoms. You may have different signs at different times. And symptoms can change between asthma attacks.
How Do I Treat A Recurrent Fever
A recurrent fever is treated just like a typical fever. Taking acetaminophen is one way to manage any uncomfortable symptoms of the fever and reduce the temperature. This is particularly useful in children. However, make sure you talk to your healthcare provider before giving your child acetaminophen. The amount of medicine you give your child can vary based on the childs weight and age. Be sure to double check the correct dosage before giving anything to your child. You can usually give your child acetaminophen from birth on. After 6 months of age, you can also give your child ibuprofen .
Speaking of medicine, make sure to avoid aspirin. This particular medicine can lead to a serious medical condition called Reyes syndrome. Its very dangerous, so do not give your child aspirin until your healthcare provider tells you it is safe to do so.
Rest is another important part of recovering from a fever. If you notice that your child is more tired than normal, let them rest.
Drink plenty of fluids is important when you have a fever. Make sure your child continues to drink water and other fluids during a fever to avoid dehydration.
Tracking the fever can also be helpful. Take notes of what temperatures happened when and how long the fever lasted. This information can help your healthcare provider with a diagnosis if you child keeps getting fevers on and off. These recurrent fevers can be a sign of a bigger medical condition.
When To Call A Professional
- Wheezing
- Difficulty breathing
- Cough
Some children with asthma may not complain specifically of shortness of breath. However, they may flare their nostrils or use their chest and neck muscles when breathing. These are signs that they are having trouble.
If you already have been diagnosed with asthma, call your doctor if your symptoms:
- Are getting worse
- Are not being controlled by your regular medications
For example, call your doctor if you must use your rescue bronchodilator more than four times a day. Also call if your peak-flow-meter readings are in the yellow or red zones.
If you have an asthma attack and your symptoms persist despite your usual medications, seek emergency help immediately.
Also Check: What’s An Asthma Attack Feel Like
How Long Asthma Lasts For
Asthma is a long-term condition for many people, particularly if it first develops when you’re an adult.
In children, it sometimes goes away or improves during the teenage years, but can come back later in life.
The symptoms can usually be controlled with treatment. Most people will have normal, active lives, although some people with more severe asthma may have ongoing problems.
What Is Atopic Dermatitis
Atopic dermatitis is the most common type of eczema, a skin condition that makes you itch and leaves red blotches, usually on your face, arms, and legs. While it happens most often in children, it also affects an estimated 18 million adults. The rashes tend to flare and go away, but then come back again.
Don’t Miss: Can Steroid Inhalers Cause Weight Gain
Children Do Not Outgrow Their Asthma
Its also a misconception that all children outgrow their asthma.
According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, children may experience remission from asthma as adults, but about one-third of children with asthma will have symptoms as adults.
A 2014 study found that its possible to experience a second peak of symptoms later in adulthood.
What Are The Signs Of A Severe Asthma Attack
Asthma may lead to a medical emergency.
Rescue inhalers can help you: otc inhalers
Seek medical help immediately for:
- Fast breathing with chest retractions
- Cyanosis which is tissue color changes on mucus membranes and fingertips or nail beds – the color appears grayish or whitish on darker skin tones and bluish on lighter skin tones
- Rapid movement of nostrils
- Ribs or stomach moving in and out deeply and rapidly
- Expanded chest that does not deflate when you exhale
- Infants with asthma who fail to respond to or recognize parents
Don’t Miss: Asthma No Inhaler What To Do
Minimising Your Risk Of An Attack
It may seem obvious, but the best way to decrease your chance of an asthma attack is to use your medicines if you start having symptoms.
“If you no longer take medicines because you have ‘grown out’ of asthma, but notice symptoms such as breathlessness, coughing at night, a tight chest or wheezing flaring up, make sure you see your doctor to discuss whether you might need to go back on asthma medicines again,” urges Whittamore.
“Your preventer inhaler reduces the inflammation in your sensitive airways over time so you are less likely to react if you come into contact with an asthma trigger, reducing your chance of having an asthma attack or flare-up,” he explains.
Common asthma symptoms include shortness of breath, a tight chest and wheezing. All can put you at risk of a life-threatening asthma attack.
Depending on the severity of your asthma, treatment usually goes as follows:
“The most basic treatment calls for a reliever inhaler to be used as symptoms appear. When the reliever inhaler is used more than twice a week, it is recommended to move the treatment to step two,” says Antalffy.
“Step two calls for a preventer inhaler, usually used twice a day regardless of symptoms, in addition to the reliever inhaler on standby.”
If your asthma is still poorly controlled after these measures, sometimes a third drug will be prescribed alongside inhalers.
Managing Your Asthma Well In Later Life
Continue to have regular asthma reviews
Whether youve had asthma all your life or youve been diagnosed with it as an older adult, an asthma review helps you stay on top of any changes in your symptoms.
You can make sure your asthma action plan is up to date, review your asthma medicines, and check youre taking the lowest dose possible to stay well and avoid side effects.
Track your symptoms
Keeping track of your symptoms makes it easier to spot any changes. Write down your symptoms in a diary, notebook, or on your phone and take it along to your next appointment.
Remember to make a note of anything you were doing that day or any triggers you came across – you may notice youre sensitive to new things that were not a problem before.
Dont ignore symptoms like breathlessness, says Dr Andy. Its easy to think that feeling a bit more breathless is just another sign that youre not as fit as you used to be.
But if youre feeling out of breath climbing stairs or walking uphill, see your GP to get it checked out. Breathlessness can be a sign that your asthma is not well controlled. It could also be a sign of another health condition.
Act quickly if symptoms get worse
To cut your risk of an asthma attack, take action as soon as you notice symptoms getting worse. As we get older, asthma attacks can be more severe and take longer to recover from.
Check your inhaler technique
Ask about side effects
Get help for other conditions too
Find out more about other conditions.
Also Check: Can You Join The Army If You Have Asthma
How Is Asthma Treated
Take your medicine exactly as your doctor tells you and stay away from things that can trigger an attack to control your asthma.
Everyone with asthma does not take the same medicine.
You can breathe in some medicines and take other medicines as a pill. Asthma medicines come in two typesquick-relief and long-term control. Quick-relief medicines control the symptoms of an asthma attack. If you need to use your quick-relief medicines more and more, visit your doctor to see if you need a different medicine. Long-term control medicines help you have fewer and milder attacks, but they dont help you while you are having an asthma attack.
Asthma medicines can have side effects, but most side effects are mild and soon go away. Ask your doctor about the side effects of your medicines.
Remember you can control your asthma. With your doctors help, make your own asthma action plan. Decide who should have a copy of your plan and where he or she should keep it. Take your long-term control medicine even when you dont have symptoms.
What Are Signs And Symptoms Of Adult Onset Asthma
Regardless of age, asthma symptoms can include:
Dry cough, especially at night or in response to specific triggers
Tightness or pressure in the chest
Wheezing a whistling sound when exhaling
Shortness of breath after exercise or physical exertion
Difficulty breathing
Colds that go to the chest or hang on for 10 days or more
Recommended Reading: How To Get Rid Of Asthma Without Inhaler
It Is Highly Treatable But It Cannot Be Cured
A cure hasnt been found yet, but the asthma symptoms can be treated. The available treatment options will allow the person to live a full, productive, and enjoyable life.
There is more than one treatment option available, as well. Some treatments may not work as well for one person as they do for another, so it may take some trial and error to get it right.
Once the correct treatment option is in place, the disease shouldnt flare up as often as before. With treatment and the avoidance of triggers, it shouldnt interfere with everyday life anymore.
8. Physical activity is still an option.
It is true that those with this disease have to be more careful than others, but that doesnt mean they cannot participate in physical activity at all. With the right medication, asthmatic sufferers can live a normal life, including being active. Moderation is also important but, as long as the asthmatic person is aware of their limits, it isnt an issue.
The asthmatic person will be able to participate in all the sports they love, and exercise just as often as a person who does not have the disease.
Personal Asthma Action Plan
As part of your initial assessment, you should be encouraged to draw up a personal asthma action plan with your GP or asthma nurse.
If you’ve been admitted to hospital because of an asthma attack, you should be offered an action plan before you go home.
The action plan should include information about your asthma medicines, and will help you recognise when your symptoms are getting worse and what steps to take. You should also be given information about what to do if you have an asthma attack.
Your personal asthma action plan should be reviewed with your GP or asthma nurse at least once a year, or more frequently if your symptoms are severe.
As part of your asthma plan, you may be given a peak flow meter. This will give you another way of monitoring your asthma, rather than relying only on symptoms, so you can recognise deterioration earlier and take appropriate steps.
Want to know more?
Don’t Miss: Asthma Exacerbation Risk Factors
Is All Asthma The Same
Asthma is quite variable. Symptoms can range from trivial and infrequent in some to severe, unrelenting, and dangerous in others. Even when severe, however, the airway obstruction is usually fully reversible, either spontaneously or as a result of treatment. This means that symptoms can be relieved, airway obstruction can be reversed, and pulmonary function can be made normal.
There are different patterns of asthma. Some people have only an intermittent pattern of disease. They have self-limited episodes of varying severity followed by extended symptom-free periods. The individual episodes are frequently triggered by viral respiratory infections . This is particularly common in young children in whom viral respiratory infections are frequent . Others have these intermittent symptomatic periods brought on by vigorous exertion, cold air, or specific environmental exposures. This pattern is intermittent asthma.
More prolonged periods of symptoms occur in people who have asthma from seasonal outdoor inhalant allergens. This may be from grass pollen on the West Coast or mold spores from molds that grow on decaying vegetation in the Midwest. Through a knowledge of the aerobiology in your area and allergy skin testing, your physician can attempt to identify whether the symptoms fit into this pattern of disease. This pattern is seasonal allergic asthma.
Can You Really Grow Out Of Asthma
“If you have asthma your airways are inflamed and sensitive to triggers such as cold air, pollution, cold and flu viruses or allergies that set off your asthma symptoms ,” says Dr Andy Whittamore, clinical lead at Asthma UK.
“For some children diagnosed with asthma, the condition might improve or disappear completely as they get older but for many people, asthma is a lifelong condition,” he adds.
However, it may not always be asthma causing the problem. Asthma-like symptoms can be down to allergies, which is why it may appear that a child has outgrown their asthma.
“True asthma does not go away, just as diabetes or hypertension don’t go away,” states Dr Thomas Antalffy, inventor of the Smart Peak Flow device.
If you feel your asthma symptoms are relieved, it may simply be lying dormant so it’s important to be vigilant.
“There may be periods where your symptoms do not affect your day-to-day life and these periods could last years or even decades. However, asthma symptoms can be triggered again by a change in circumstances, such as a new workplace, stress, or hormonal changes during pregnancy or menopause,” says Whittamore.
“If you’re taking your asthma medicines as prescribed and feeling well, this is a sign that they are working,” so don’t assume you no longer need treatment, he warns.
If symptoms do come back, it’s vital that you don’t ignore them and that you speak with your GP.
Can you really ‘grow out’ of asthma?
Recommended Reading: What Happens If You Smoke Weed With Asthma
Would You Prioritize People With Asthma For Vaccine Purposes
Asthma is a chronic condition that affects the lungs. People with moderate to severe asthma can be put into the category of living with a chronic health condition. This is because of the relative risk of worse outcomes given that COVID-19 also affects the lungs.
I think that deciding which conditions are given vaccine priority is very difficult.
There are certain conditions that, when people with these conditions also have COVID-19, are very likely to lead to poor outcomes. These conditions include obesity, diabetes, and COPD. Asthma isnt one of these conditions.
Were not necessarily seeing higher numbers of hospitalizations and deaths in people with asthma. The study in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine showed that.
At the end of the day, if you have severe and difficult to manage asthma and your lungs are inflamed at baseline, then you may theoretically not have a very good outcome with COVID-19. Thats especially true if your lungs are affected.
Unfortunately, we dont have national guidelines for this. In New York State, moderate to severe asthma is on the vaccine priority list. So, not for the people who have mild asthma.
Its for the people who have moderate to severe asthma, which means that theyre likely on a controller medication.
Whats The Difference Between A Recurrent Fever And A Classic Fever
The main difference between a classic fever and a recurrent fever is how often it happens. If you have a recurrent fever, it lasts for a few days, gets better, goes away and then comes back after a period of time when you felt healthy. Recurrent fevers keep happening and coming back over time. A classic fever is also usually linked to an infection or virus. With a recurrent fever, you may have a higher body temperature without any virus or bacterial infection.
Read Also: Himalayan Salt Inhaler For Asthma
Continue To Avoid Asthma Triggers
Preventing asthma symptoms from returning may also depend on avoiding your triggers and controlling your environment as much as possible. The following steps may help:
- Take over-the-counter antihistamines during allergy season to help prevent symptoms of allergic asthma.
- Keep pets out of your bed if youre allergic to animal dander.
- Clean your home often, paying special attention to areas where dust can accumulate, such as carpeting, rugs, and curtains.
- Avoid cigarette smoke.
- Exercise in cold weather with caution.
I Went Back To The Doctor
When I was 24, I moved into a new flat, on the second floor. My brother and mum were helping me with redoing the bathroom.
While carrying the tiles up the stairs, my breathing became so bad that my brother spoke up, and said he thought something was seriously wrong with me – that there was no way it was just asthma.
When my brother heard my breathing, he said there was no way that was just asthma.
That convinced me it was time to go back to the doctor, so I returned to my local GP surgery and told them I thought something else was wrong. They gave me a new bundle of asthma pumps and things to try, and lots of tests where you blow into tubes.
The nurses said I had signs of asthma, but now, rather than it being a certain diagnosis, they werent totally sure.
Recommended Reading: Can You Get Asthma From Smoking Weed