Introduction

Have you ever seen someone who is suffering from asthmatic attack? Or have someone ever told you to close the windows because it is dusty and that might trigger his asthma?

Most of us has come to meet people who might be friends or relatives who has asthma and we might have noticed that when we see them using an inhaler, yet many of us are a little shy to ask thinking that might be embarrassing for others, so my goal of this post today is sharing useful information about asthma and will talk about it from different perspectives.

Photo by Sahej Brar on Unsplash

Asthma As a Definition

Asthma is one of the chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases which are group of diseases that are characterized by airway obstruction, where the biggest complication will be with expiration and not inspiration as in the chronic restrictive pulmonary diseases. And Asthma in specific is reversible airway bronchoconstriction, usually do to allergy yet there are different types and they occur for different reason.

Occurrence and Heritability

Asthma usually starts appearing in childhood, and children aren't diagnosed with asthma unless it occurs more than one time (so one time occurrence of symptoms like asthma will still not be diagnosed with it). In addition to that, family history of hypersensitivity reactions like eczema and urticaria might indicate asthma if the new generation has asthma like symptoms (but that also doesn't mean they will develop asthma, they might develop any of hypersensitivity diseases).

Pathogenesis (Briefly)

In the first attack to allergen the patients body will produce immunoglobin(E) which is produced from plasma cells. In the second attack, the body will already have IgE (immunoglobin E) ready so it will bind with the antigen and then this complex will bind to mast cells which then will form the degranulation mast cells which will then secret histamine and serotonin. Histamine will lead to the appearance of some symptoms like: Bronchospasm, vasodilation, and increase myosin secretion.

Dealing With Asthma

As many other diseases, asthma can be treated pharmacologically and non-pharmacologically. And starting with the non-pharmacological ways:

1. Quit smoking.
2. Remove indoor allergens and avoid outdoor allergens, if possible.
3. Beware of cold weather conditions.
4. Vaccinations especially against RS infection.

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

There more under this category but I chose those to be in this post. And for the pharmacological ways, it's two categories which are long-term control medications and quick relief medications.

Long-term control medications:

we use it regularly for a long time and it prevent occur asthma attack at the long term, such as:

1. Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS).
2. Inhaled long-acting β2-agonists (LABAs).
3. Oral leukotriene receptor antagonists (LTRAs).

Quick relief medications:

we use it when an attack occur and we want to treat it quickly, such as:

1. Inhaled short-acting β2-agonists (SABAs).
2. Short-acting muscarinic antagonists (SAMAs).
3. Short bursts of systemic corticosteroids.

Finally

All those drugs are usually given using inhalers but for sure they aren't enough to cover the non-pharmacological treatments just like any other chorionic disease. So if you are suffering from asthma, please be aware, stay healthy, and make sure to not skip your medications.

Stay safe everyone, thanks for reading.

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Sources: Pathoma- Fundamentals of Pathology.
local professor PP slides.