Know More About Asthma

I am Dr. M.C Gupta. Practicing at Jeevan Jyoti Hospital, Faridabad. I am a pulmonologist and going to talk about asthma.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways. Leading to hyper responsiveness of the airways, causing breathlessness, chest tightness, cough which is usually in the night or early morning hours. It should be reversible by it self or by drugs. Prevalence of asthma is in India between 1.3 to 2.5% and it is higher in the children and go even up to 10%. Type of asthma are childhood asthma, adult onset asthma, chronic asthma, occupational asthma and difficult to treat asthma. Asthma is usually genetic or environmental factors. The environmental triggers usually are allergens. Most of are, in allergens most important cause is house dust might. It can be due to stress, anxiety, obesity, drugs, infection. Infection are usually viral. It can be due to drugs like aspirin, NSIAD, or ace. The diagnosis of asthma is usually by pulmonary function test which shows the obstruction and the reversibility of the obstruction by inhaled short acting beta to agonist. If the reversibility is good then the patient is labeled as asthma. Treatment of asthma is for emergency patients or a routine patients. If a patient is unable to take proper breath, his heart rate is more than 120, he is having increased respiratory rate of 30 or having sinuses or unable to speak a single sentence then he is having a severe attack of asthma and should be rushed, patient should be rushed to the nearby health faculty for admission and treatment. Treatment for routine asthmatic is divided into certain steps. Steps 1 to 5. In the step 1, the patient is given short acting beta 2 agonist as and when required, with that the patient usually remain all right, the need for inhalation for beta 2 agonist should not be regular. Step 2 consist of inhaled corticosteroids in low doses, and the patient remain usually well controlled with that. In the step 3 of this, there is a either high dose of inhaled corticosteroids or combination of low dosed inhaled corticosteroids plus long acting beta 2 agonist. In step 4 if the patients is not controlled with the drugs in step 3 then, the patient is put on to step 4 and contain high dose inhaled corticosteroids plus long acting beta2 agonist. Most of the patients are controlled up to steep wise treatment 1 to 4. If the patient is not controlled given with that then the patient may need oral corticosteroids or anti iGE treatment.

For further queries or any follow up treatments you can contact me at my hospital.