What Symptoms Say About Asthma

It is important to understand the asthma symptoms that might affect. Not recognizing more severe asthma symptoms might delay care and put people at risk for hospitalization or even a life-threatening asthma attack. As asthma worsens, the airways narrow, become inflamed, and fill with mucus. The constriction and inflammation may cause patients to experience some or all symptoms such as wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and chronic cough.

Wheezing is one of the common asthma symptoms and is often the reason many people seek care. With wheezing people will hear a high-pitched whistle sound as breathe through the mouth or nose. While most commonly heard as exhale, or breathe out, wheezing may also occur when inhaling or breathing in. Wheezing results from the airways of the lungs narrowing as a result of inflammation, making it more difficult for air to flow through the lung.

Chest tightness frequently occurs in asthma patients, either alone or with the other symptoms of asthma. As the airways become more inflamed, filled with mucus, and the smooth muscles in airways constrict, chest tightness may be experienced as the inability or perception of not being able to move air in and out of the lungs. This feeling may also increase anxiety and further worsen the sense of not being able to move air through the lungs.

Shortness of breath is one of the classic asthma symptoms people experience before being diagnosed with asthma or when their asthma is poorly controlled. Shortness of breath refers to feeling breathless or having difficulty breathing. The doctor may refer to shortness of breath using the medical term dyspnea. There is no strict medical definition for shortness of breath. Patients will often describe this trouble breathing differently. Some adults will also describe shortness of breath as "feeling tired" or a decreased ability to do their normal activities.

Chronic cough is common among patients developing asthma symptoms and is also a sign of poorly controlled asthma. Chronic cough is a common reason why patients seek care from a doctor and also one of the body's normal defense mechanisms. While a chronic cough can be a sign of infection or asthma, a cough can also happen when body tries to expel infection, mucus and other foreign material from the body. Chronic cough related to asthma commonly occurs at night and its frequency is one of the factors used to determine how well patients’ symptoms are controlled. A cough with asthma may be made worse by viral infections and cold air.

Everyone's asthma is different. People may experience other symptoms and symptoms will vary in intensity. The thing is, when a cough occurs with other common asthma symptoms like wheezing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath or when someone has a significant nighttime cough, asthma should be suspected and people may need to undergo tests to diagnose asthma.

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