Other Ways To Prevent Asthma Attacks At Night
If a persons asthma is under control, then it would be rare for them to have a nocturnal asthma attack, said Carrillo. However, everybody has their own asthma triggers, so it is important to be mindful of your triggers, even when sleeping.She recommends four steps you can take to create an asthma-friendly sleep:
- Avoid sleeping near strong odors like perfumes or bed linen sprays
- Use pillow covers to prevent dust mites
- Wash your bed linens in hot water on a regular basis
- Keep pets out of the bedroom, especially if you are sensitive to their dander
- Get your flu shot and stay ahead of any respiratory illnesses
Why Does Asthma Worsen At Night Tips To Manage
Why Does Asthma Worsen At Night? Asthma worsens at night due to the disruption in circadian rhythm. It is also caused by uneven sleep patterns, which in turn disrupt the circadian rhythm. Ways you can manage and control your asthma symptoms are by cleaning your bedroom regularly, washing the bedding in hot water, using dust-proof bedding etc.
Asthma is a chronic disease that causes inflammation and narrowing of the airways in the lungs. It causes wheezing , chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughing. During an asthma attack, your airway muscles constrict, and mucous membranes produce excess mucus, blocking your breathing. Allergens such as dust, spores, animal hairs, cold air, infection and even stress can trigger asthma.
There are many different types of asthma brought on by different triggers. Some of the most common types of asthma are adult-onset asthma, allergic asthma, nocturnal asthma, asthma-COPD overlap, non-allergic asthma, occupational asthma and childhood asthma.
According to various studies, about 15 per cent of the Indian population is suffering from asthma. The respiratory problem is diagnosed at an early age, and since this ailment is not curable, people try to do everything they can to keep the symptoms under control in an effort to lead a normal life. Asthma can be treated with medications and lifestyle changes.
Keep Your Room Cold Without Ac
Keeping your room as cold as possible is really important for overall sleep hygiene, but unfortunately, as mentioned, AC can be triggering for us asthmatics. Im lucky enough to live in a cool enough place that simply using fans all year keeps my room cool enough for me. If youre in a warmer place, this Chillipad, which keeps your mattress cool, might be worth the investment!
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When To See The Doctor
A good rule of thumb is you should visit your doctor if you have asthma and you wake up in the night more than once per week after using treatments. Your doctor can evaluate what may be causing your symptoms and help modify your treatment plan. Checking your breath in a peak flow meter at night may also be helpful.
If you are not diagnosed with asthma but have asthma-like symptoms at night, you should report the episodes to your doctor. While you may not have asthma, your doctor can point you in the right direction for treatment.
How Do You Monitor Asthma Symptoms
Monitoring your asthma symptoms is an essential piece of managing the disease. Your healthcare provider may have you use a peak flow meter. This device measures how fast you can blow air out of your lungs. It can help your provider make adjustments to your medication. It also tells you if your symptoms are getting worse.
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Why Is Asthma Worse At Night
If you have asthma, you may notice that your symptoms are worse during certain times of the day. For example, some people have worse asthma symptoms during the spring or experience asthma exacerbations when it’s cold outside.
But for some, asthma symptoms may be especially bothersome at night. An increase in coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath can develop just as you try to get some sleep.
An increase in asthma symptoms at night can make it difficult to get proper rest, leaving you fatigued the next day. If asthma symptoms often flareup at night, you may end up with sleep deprivation, which can affect work or school, as well as your overall health.
Understanding why asthma may become worse at night and what you can do may help you get the sleep you need.
Improving Asthma At Night
Although you cannot control certain factors, such as your hormone levels, there are several things you can do to improve your asthma symptoms at night. Consider the tips below for suppressing flareups.
Reduce Allergens
Certain things in your bedroom might be triggering an increase in asthma symptoms. Make your bedroom as allergen-free as possible. By decreasing allergens, you may reduce nighttime symptoms.
Keep your bedroom free of dust and clean your bedroom often. Use a vacuum with a HEPA filter, which works well to trap dust. Get rid of items that easily collect dust, such as books or knickknacks.
You should also wash your bedding in hot water about once a week to get rid of dust mites. Consider using hypoallergenic pillowcases and sheets, which can help decrease allergens as well.
If pet dander is an issue, dont let your four-legged friends sleep in your room. Pet danger can become trapped in the carpet, which can lead to an increase in symptoms.
Sleep with Your Head Elevated
An increase in mucus from your sinuses may trigger asthma symptoms, such as coughing. Acid reflux, which is very common, can also trigger coughing and other asthma symptoms.
If postnasal drip, increased mucus, or acid reflux is an issue, consider sleeping with the head of your bed elevated. Place a wedge pillow under your head or use a few pillows while you sleep.
Medication and/or Treatment Changes
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What Is Morning Asthma
If your child wakes up every single morning coughing, wheezing, or having trouble breathing, dry air is probably not the culprit. In truth, it could be a number of different things. Morning asthma affects many individuals and causes difficulty breathing in the wee hours of the night. Lets take a closer look at what morning asthma is and how it affects your child.
Why Does Asthma Get Worse At Night
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In 1698, British doctor John Floyer wrote a treatise on asthma, the first major work focused on the disease. Not all of it aged well. He warned that those who were sad or angry were more likely to experience attacks, as sadness would stop the Motion of Humors. He also recommended a few cures including regular, gentle vomiting.
In an asthma attack, the air passageways in a persons lungs start to close, making it hard for them to breathe and causing tightness in the chest, coughing, and wheezing. But Floyers piece also noted another important symptom: His own asthma was almost always more severe at night, sometimes waking him up at 1 or 2 in the morning. Hundreds of years later, scientists were finding evidence that backed him up: A study from 2005 showed that nearly 75 percent of people with asthma experience worse attacks at night. A famous mortality survey of London hospitals in the 1970s showed that early morning and nighttime attacks were more likely to be fatal.
That body clock is also called the circadian system. Among other important functions, it regulates hormones, heartbeat, and the immune system over a cycle that lasts about 24 hours. While this system is internal, its heavily influenced by outside factors like light and dark, mealtimes, and work schedules.
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You Wake Up Coughing And Wheezing During The Night
If youre ever jolted awake in the middle of the night by a fit of coughing or wheezing, you may need to modify your severe-asthma management plan.
Properly managed asthma shouldnt wake you up from sleep more than one or two nights a month. If youre losing sleep due to your symptoms more than this, it may be time to discuss treatment modifications with your doctor.
Your peak flow readings are a measurement of how well your lungs are functioning at their best. This measurement is usually tested at home with a handheld device called a peak flow meter.
If your peak flow levels drop below 80 percent of your personal best, thats a sign that your severe asthma is poorly managed. Another sign that your asthma is getting worse is if your peak flow reading varies greatly from day to day. If you notice low or inconsistent numbers, contact your doctor as soon as possible.
Tips To Prevent Nighttime Asthma Attacks
Nighttime asthma attacks can be controlled. Take these steps to sleep better with severe asthma.
Many people with severe asthma find that symptoms like coughing, wheezing, and breathlessness are worse at night. There are a number of reasons why this is so, says Sonali Bose, MD, an assistant professor in the division of medicine, pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.
Some key factors that contribute to nighttime asthma attacks include:
- Your bodys internal clock. Your circadian rhythm causes some of your hormone levels to fall at night. Lower levels of hormones can cause your airways to narrow slightly. These narrowed airways can exacerbate your asthma symptoms, according to the Asthma Society of Canada .
- Dust mites. Your pillows, blankets, and mattress can all be a haven for these microscopic insect-like pests and their waste. Allergies to dust mites can worsen asthma, and you could be wallowing in them as you sleep, according to the ASC.
- Gravity. When you lie down, your chest and lungs naturally experience extra pressure, the ASC says.
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Tips To Sleep Better With Severe Asthma At Night
Nocturnal asthma is associated with poor sleep quality. This condition of sleeplessness and its effects are worse for children. The average total sleep quality score of children affected by asthma is 51, which is above the clinical cut off of 41, but it indicates the pervasive sleep disturbances among this population.
Here are a few tips that can help you sleep better with asthma at night:
Youre Coughing And Wheezing More During The Day
Another sign that your severe asthma may be getting worse is if youre coughing or wheezing more often. Talk to your doctor about adjusting your treatment plan if you constantly feel like youre about to cough. If you find yourself wheezing with a whistle-like sound more than once a day, seek your doctors opinion as well.
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Lie On Your Left Side With A Pillow Between Your Legs
If youre a side sleeper with asthma, lying on your left side may help particularly if you have gastroesophageal reflux, also known as heartburn, which can trigger asthma especially at night. Sleeping on your left side uses gravity, the shape of the stomach, and the angle of the connection between it and the esophagus,which can reduce reflux. Lying on your left side with your head elevated may be enough to keep you comfortable through the night, but if its not, experiment by adding a pillow between your legs.
Adding the pillow may keep your spine stable throughout the night and may improve your sleep posture, which can help you breathe easily.
Heres Why Your Asthma Gets Worse At Night
Having your interrupted is annoying at best and, especially if it happens often, meltdown-inducing at worst. But when you wake up in the middle of a coughing fit or because you feel like youre breathing through a straw, the whole experience can take a terrifying turn.
Unfortunately, thats what some people with have to deal with. It is very common for asthma to get worse at night, pulmonologist Ryan Thomas, M.D., director of the Multidisciplinary Severe Asthma Team at Michigan State University, tells SELF. This phenomenon, which experts sometimes refer to as nocturnal asthma, can make it far too difficult to get the amount of rest you need. It can also be a sign that you need to take steps to subdue your asthma before it gets even worse.
Your airways, which extend between your nose and mouth and your lungs, carry air in and out of your body, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute . Pretty key job, huh? But if you have asthma, those airways can get all puffy and inflamed when youre exposed to triggers like animal dander , , mold, cold air, cigarette smoke, exercise, and respiratory infections like the flu, the says. That swelling can then cause the muscles around your airways to tighten, and your airways may also expel more mucus than they usually do. The end result is the opposite of breathing easy: You might experience asthma symptoms like wheezing , coughing, shortness of breath, and chest pain or tightness.
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When To See A Specialist
Did you know that you are not able to sneeze when you are asleep? This means that one of the most important ways of ridding your body from allergens, sneezing, is unavailable while you sleep. This can lead to a worsening of symptoms that will wake you up.
Keeping your sleeping environment, your body, and your sleep clothes clear from allergens certainly cannot hurt you and often is enough to give you a comfortable nights sleep. But, for some, it isnt enough and the only available option is allergy medication.
If your allergies are making it difficult to sleep at night, contact Carolina Asthma and Allergy Center today. Since 1952, Carolina Asthma and Allergy Center has served the Charlotte metropolitan area. Today, the center has 12 offices in and around Charlotte. All the 14 allergists at the center are board certified by the American Board of Allergy and . To make an appointment at an office near you call 704-372-7900.
Treatment Of Nocturnal Asthma
Important treatment considerations for nocturnal asthma are listed in Box 225, and general asthma guidelines are listed in Table 227. Reducing the burden of allergen exposure by keeping the bedroom free of dust may help. The foundation of treatment of chronic persistent asthma is inhaled corticosteroids. Weersink and colleagues80 studied a group with nocturnal asthma and patients were treated with inhaled fluticasone, salmeterol , or the combination. The three treatments all reduced the circadian variation in peak flow to less than 10% , improved the bronchial hyperresponsiveness to methacholine both day and night, and improved cognitive performance during daytime testing. Thus, the usual practice is to start with inhaled steroids and add a long-acting inhaled beta agonist if symptoms persist .
M. Innes Asher BSc, MBChB, FRACP, ⦠Eamon Ellwood DipTch, DipInfo Tech, in, 2012
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Night Or Morning Difficulties
Having asthma is one of the more serious issues you can face, health-wise. While today’s medical advances have made it easier to treat asthma through things like medications and treatments, there is still no way to completely eliminate the condition or the various symptoms that it can cause. If you think you may have asthma then a number of symptoms will certainly help you determine if you should visit a doctor or not. And if you already have asthma, knowing these different problems will help you learn just whether or not a particular issue is related to your asthma. For many, the biggest asthma symptoms are severe difficulties in the night or early morning hours.
In most cases this is indicative of nocturnal asthma, but even those with regular asthma will find that the night and morning are the two most difficult times of day for them. Breathing difficulty, pounding heart rates, coughing, and a tightness of the chest all combine to form the most common morning and night symptoms of asthma and can create a very real issue for the millions who suffer from asthma. There are a few reasons that the night and morning hours can be difficult for those with asthma.
Symptoms Causes And Treatments
There are several types of asthma, all with similar symptoms, such as difficulty breathing and chest tightness. The different asthma types vary in their triggers and underlying causes, and some may have additional symptoms. While they are similar, an accurate diagnosis is needed for optimal treatment.
Asthma subtypes include:
- Occupational asthma
- Glucocorticoid-resistant asthma
It’s possible to have more than one type of asthma, such as non-allergic and nocturnal. And most people who have asthma will experience exercise-induced bronchoconstriction at some point.
Asthma is also classified by severity, and the severity may change over time. Most asthma types can range in severity.
Your diagnosis may include the type and severity of your asthmafor example, you could be diagnosed with moderate-persistent occupational asthma or intermittent allergic asthma.
Some elements of asthma are the same across most or all types and severities:
- Classic symptoms:Wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath, cough, asthma attacks
- Causes/risk factors: Genetics and environmental exposures
- Diagnosis:Pulmonary function tests and assessment of response to asthma medications
- Treatment: A rescue inhaler for the treatment of asthma attacks and possibly daily inhaled or oral medications to prevent symptoms
Some asthma types have unique underlying mechanisms that require specific additional treatments.
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Keep Your Mattress Up Off Of The Floor
While you technically can use some mattresses directly on the floor, we dont suggest that for people with allergies Placing your mattress on the floor means youre closer to dirt, dust, and other germs that can more easily make their way into your sleep space. Using a mattress foundation or bed frame limits your exposure to these irritants.