|
Asthma is not a
disease, say doctors. It is a symptom of some other condition.
Asthma is a condition marked by continuous or paroxysmal
(convulsive) labored breathing accompanied by wheezing, a sense of
constriction in the chest and attacks of coughing or gasping.
Wheezing, according to the dictionary, means to breathe with
difficulty, usually with a whistling sound.
The signs and
symptoms of an asthma patient include
difficulty
in
breathing
because
the flow of air into and out of his lungs
is obstructed. Either a swelling of mucous membranes or a
constriction of the tubes leading from the windpipe to the lungs
may be the cause of the obstruction.
Doctors say that
the causes of
asthma may be an allergy, pollution in
the atmosphere or due to emotional disturbances. They also say
that if a person develops asthma before completing thirty, the
cause is usually an allergy. The allergy could be certain kinds of
food, dust, animals or even medicines.
|
|
|
A person prone to asthma does not necessarily get an attack due to
direct contact with what is allergic to him.
An indirect contact too may result in his falling sick. For
instance, if a person is allergic to the smell of nail polish, it
doesn’t mean that he or she will get an attack only when he or she
opens a bottle. A friend or a family member using nail polish in
another room is enough trigger for
the asthma attack to set in. Other similar smells too are likely
to make him vulnerable to an attack. Similarly, if a person is
allergic to pets, a visit from a friend or a relative who keeps
pets at home is likely to affect the person. In the case of
children, they develop an allergy to certain kinds of foods like
milk, eggs or wheat products, which may be the causal factor for
asthma.
More and more doctors are beginning to believe that being healthy
does not mean merely absence of diseases or illnesses. One’s
emotions play an important in keeping a person healthy.
When stress arising from family disputes or financial
problems plague a person, chances are high that an attack of
asthma could set in. The explanation doctors offer is this: when a
person is emotionally disturbed, he feels unloved and rejected.
This sets off a set of negative emotions that bring about a chain
of reactions, which in turn set off an attack. The attack may be
sudden or gradual.
Given the above causes, doctors believe in first identifying and
then eliminating the cause.
During the
treatment of
asthma, a doctor usually
probes deep into the medical history, the person’s habits, the
environment, his routine and so on. |
