Asthma is one of the most common lifelong chronic diseases.
Healthy Tip Tuesday is brought to you by Trinity Hospital Twin City.
The Ohio Department of Health recognizes May as Asthma Awareness Month in order to inspire efforts to bring more attention to this common disease. While asthma can be controlled with proper treatment and self-management, nearly 46.5% of children with asthma in Ohio, according to reports, have uncontrolled asthma.
Ohio Asthma Fast Facts:
- More than 1 million people have asthma in Ohio.
- In 2018, 129 Ohioans died from asthma.
- Black children in Ohio visit the emergency room and hospital at a rate more than four times greater than that of white children.
Common asthma symptoms:
- Coughing
- At night, while exercising, or when laughing
- Difficulty breathing
- Chest tightness
- Shortness of breath
- Wheezing
What Is an Asthma Attack?
An asthma attack, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, may include coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, and trouble breathing. The attack happens in your body’s airways, which are the paths that carry air to your lungs. As the air moves through your lungs, the airways become smaller, like the branches of a tree are smaller than the tree trunk. During an asthma attack, the sides of the airways in your lungs swell and the airways shrink. Less air gets in and out of your lungs, and mucous that your body makes clogs up the airways.
You can control your asthma by knowing the warning signs of an asthma attack, staying away from things that cause an attack, and following your doctor’s advice. When you control your asthma:
- you won’t have symptoms such as wheezing or coughing,
- you’ll sleep better,
- you won’t miss work or school,
- you can take part in all physical activities, and
- you won’t have to go to the hospital.
How Is Asthma Treated?
Take your medicine exactly as your doctor tells you and stay away from things that can trigger an attack to control your asthma.
Everyone with asthma does not take the same medicine.
You can breathe in some medicines and take other medicines as a pill. Asthma medicines come in two types—quick-relief and long-term control. Quick-relief medicines control the symptoms of an asthma attack. If you need to use your quick-relief medicines more and more, visit your doctor to see if you need a different medicine. Long-term control medicines help you have fewer and milder attacks, but they don’t help you while you are having an asthma attack.
Asthma medicines can have side effects, but most side effects are mild and soon go away. Ask your doctor about the side effects of your medicines.
Remember – you can control your asthma. With your doctor’s help, make your own asthma action plan. Decide who should have a copy of your plan and where he or she should keep it. Take your long-term control medicine even when you don’t have symptoms.
