An asthma attack is any acute change in your asthma symptoms that interrupts your normal routine and requires either extra medication or some other intervention to improve so that you can breathe normally again. When your asthma worsens, three primary changes take place in your lungs that make your airways smaller:
- Increased Mucus: As your airways become irritated and inflamed, the cells produce more mucus. The thick mucus may clog up the airways of your ling.
- Inflammation and Swelling: Just as your ankle swells from the irritation caused by a twisted ankle, the airways of your lung swell in response to whatever is causing your asthma attack.
- Muscle Tightening: As the smooth muscles in your airways tighten in response to your asthma attack, the airways become smaller.
The narrowing of the airways may occur and bring on symptoms very quickly, or it may occur over a longer period of time. The symptoms of the attack itself may range from very mild to very severe.
These symptoms include:
Asthma attacks may occur when you have an infection like the common cold or some other kind of viral or bacterial respiratory infection. Likewise, your symptoms may worsen when you breathe in something that irritates your lungs, such as cigarette smoke, dust or other possible triggers.
It is important to know how to handle an asthma attack when it occurs.
Sources:
American Lung Association. Accessed June 4, 2009. Asthma Attacks
Asthma. In Chest Medicine: Essentials Of Pulmonary And Critical Care Medicine. Editors: Ronald B. George, Richard W. Light, Richard A. Matthay, Michael A. Matthay. May 2005, 5th edition.
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Accessed: June, 2009. Expert Panel Report 3 (EPR3): Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma
