Asthma (Bronchial Asthma)

Good evening friends, my name is Dr Sumit Wadhwa I am a consultant internal and pulmonary medicine at Global Health Experts, Gurgaon. We treat many patients with chest conditions like asthma from diagnosis treatment to patient education, today's topic bronchial asthma. Asthma is the chronic condition of the lung that can be managed but not cure, it usually affects the average of the lungs resulting, causing narrowing and may resulting in wheezing and chest congestion. During breathing the airway air goes through the nose into the upper airway and to the windpipe which branches into the bronchite to reach the lungs. In asthma, the airways become oversensitive so that they can easily irritate by certain triggers called as asthmatic triggers most people with asthma are described as atopic that means they have an allergic-type reaction on exposure to these triggers. These triggers for asthma attack will be different for everyone common outdoor triggers are pollen, smoke cold weather and pollution, common indoor triggers for asthma our house mite, cockroach mold and pet dander. However, some people from asthma may also have attacks on excess exposure to excessive stress laughter, emotional attacks and during certain viral infection asthma triggers causes the airway to narrow and the muscles to contract to result in wheezing when the airway when the air passes through these narrow passages. Mucus production also occurs from the lining of the airways resulting in further narrowing and making breathing difficult. These may result in persistence and producing symptoms of an asthma attack that may be mild moderate or severe requiring hospitalization. The narrowing of these airways is usually reversible when the exposure to trigger is removed and inflammation is treated medically. Now prevention of, a prevalence of asthma is increasing worldwide due to increasing pollution, changing lifestyles and excessive hygienic conditions. Test done for diagnosis of asthma include Spirometry which is usually a permanent function test using assesses the severity of abstraction and hence the severity of disease, blood test charges suggestive of asthma include eosinophilia, chest x-ray is usually normal in asthma but is done to rule out other conditions if there is a doubt and it detection of certain triggers such as houses dust mite and pollen is done by skin prick test. Management of asthma includes the goals of the treatment are to decrease, prevent recurrent asthma attacks which may lead to permanent damage to the airways raising to persisting symptoms. Medications used for asthma include inhalers which maybe controller or rescue medications, regular rule use of controller medications containing long-acting anti-inflammatory agents reduce the inflammation of the airways making them blood sensitive to these triggers. Using inhalers with correct technique and results in best outcome and reduce the medication course, we may also advise the patient regarding their triggers and to avoid these triggers. Immunotherapy measures are provided to certain patients to make them hypo or desensitized the patient to the triggers of asthma. Thank you for the patient listening.