Asthma: What is Asthma?, Causes, Signs, Symptoms and Home Remedies Of Asthma

Signs and symptoms

Signs and symptoms – Thelifetoday.com

Patients with asthma may not feel anything different with breathing when they are not undergoing an exacerbation. Thus, the disease may not have any sign or symptom if your child is not exposed to the trigger. That’s why the bronchial challenge test was developed, which uses histamine or another trigger to prompt bronchospasms in a controlled setting in order to evaluate the extent of the disease.

When flare-ups are starting to develop, and in severe cases, patients will have various symptoms in different degrees of intensity. The most common include:

  • Breathing difficulty: The most common symptom is the sensation of breathing difficulty. The patient has a noticeable change in his breathing pattern and feels he’s getting out of breath. He would take deep breaths trying to compensate and often feel anxious about their own condition.
  • Wheezing: This is another characteristic sign, and usually the give-out sign in infants and children who do not communicate their symptoms with their parents, caregivers, or physicians. The airways make this sound as they reduce their size and the flow of air on the walls starts to create an audible pitch. In mild cases, it will only be noticeable with a stethoscope.
  • Cough: In some cases, cough is the only presenting sign of asthma, and this modality is known as cough variant asthma. It is a condition that turns into traditional asthma when nothing is done to treat the problem. In the classic variant, asthma triggers cough as the airways become affected by mucus. It is a reflex to eliminate mucus along with the allergen.
  • A pressing sensation in the chest: As the airways tighten, patients also feel a tight sensation in the chest. It is not a painful sensation. It feels tight, similar to wearing a very small shirt.
  • Low tolerance to exercise: These basic symptoms are often triggered by exercise, and patients develop a low tolerance to exercise as the disease advances. Overweight and obesity also contribute to asthma, so the habit of sedentarism is potentially a source of more asthma symptoms in a vicious cycle.
  • Blood pressure changes: If you take the blood pressure of a person with asthma, you could notice a change in their blood pressure. Their systolic blood pressure lowers by 10 mmHg as they breathe in, and this is known as pulsus paradoxus. It is an important sign in asthma patients typically found in the physical exam.
  • Rapid breathing: These patients feel that they’re out of breath and need to breathe more rapidly and profoundly to compensate. The normal breathing rate is around 12 to 16 breaths per minute in adults and approximately 30 breaths per minute in a 6-year-old child. But asthmatic patients breathe more rapidly than expected for their age.
  • Rapid heartbeat: Tachycardia or a rapid heartbeat is also very likely in these patients, especially in more severe cases. Feeling nervous also contributes to increasing the heartbeat in grown-up children and adults aware of the consequences of not breathing and feeling afraid about their condition.
  • Accessory muscle use: Using accessory muscles for breathing is an essential step for a deep breath. These muscles are rarely used in normal breathing and include muscles of the neck, above the sternum, and between the ribs. A skilled physician would look at the patient without a shirt and examine his chest as he breathes to evaluate if they are using accessory muscles.
  • Barrel-shaped chest: Another sign that is visible for doctors at plain sight is a barrel-shaped chest. The chest increases its anteroposterior size when patients are not appropriately treated or remain symptomatic for a very long time. This is also seen in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
  • Muting: The breathing effort is sometimes very intense and does not allow talking normally. This is more common in young children and may also be noticeable in adults with a more severe condition.
  • A prolonged expiratory phase: If we evaluate the breathing pattern, we will see a change in asthma patients. In most cases, the time we take to breathe in and breathe out is almost the same. In these patients, the breathing out phase of respiration is very long, and the relationship between inspiration and expiration is close to 1:3.
  • Cyanosis: When these symptoms are held for a very long time, and in severe respiratory insufficiency cases, patients can develop cyanosis. This is a change in the skin tone to a purple or violet tone as the blood reduces its levels of oxygen. Cyanosis is particularly common in very young children and infants who are more susceptible to oxygen changes.
  • Changes in the level of consciousness: In some cases, low oxygen levels affect the brain and cause a change in consciousness level. Patients may become drowsy, confused, or start talking incoherently. This symptom is not very common but primarily seen in older adults with a severe asthma case.