What Is Asthma And What Are Its Types?

What is asthma? Usually it is a chronic inflammatory condition that affects the airways of the lungs.

It is one of those medical conditions, that is still mysterious and there is no preventive to avoid this disease.

Characteristics that help in asthma diagnosis:

  • Airway hyper-responsiveness is one of the characteristics of asthma.This condition is due to number of common stimuli including allergens and irritants like pollen, food ingredients, cigarette smoke, perfumes and dust mites.
  • Second characteristic of asthma include, inflammation of the bronchi. Bronchi are the small tubes within the lungs which allow the passage of air and oxygen to reach the bloodstream.The inflammation of these airways as a reaction to a specific allergen or irritant can cause air passage very difficult.
  • Restriction of airflow because of inflammation that is normally reversible either spontaneously or with medication.

Types of asthma:

Asthma is related to your respiratory system and it can be divided into two major groups:

One is extrinsic – This is a condition where a specific external cause can be recognized, such as allergens or irritants which are mentioned above.

The other is intrinsic or cryptogenic – This is the condition where no definite cause can be recognized.

More than 90% of the children and approximately 50% of adults who are suffering with constant asthma attack are found to have the extrinsic type asthma. Only a simple skin prick test is enough to identify the allergen to which they are allergic.

Those who have intrinsic type asthma can be tested for all the common allergens and irritants but not any of them can be found as the cause of asthma attack. In these situations you are suggested to maintain a report in which you need to note everything about where you were and what you were doing immediately before having asthmatic episode so that it will be very easy to form the links and to identify the specific allergen.

Depending on when you have first asthmatic symptoms, it can be classified. They can be early on-set asthma in childhood and late on-set asthma during adulthood. But both of them have different causes.

Asthma Trigger That Worse Your Condition–>

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