Asthma Attack - Learn What is Happening to You Before and During an Attack

An asthma attack is experienced by approximately 30,000 people every single day in the United States. What many people don't realize is that an average of eleven people die every day from asthma. The number of asthma cases continues to rise despite the billions of dollars being spent on asthma prescription medications.

What is asthma and what can cause you to have an asthma attack? Having asthma means that your airways or breathing tubes going to your lungs are extremely sensitive to one or more things. These things are known as your asthma triggers. They could be things like animal dander, smoke, paint fumes, dust mites, molds, pollen, certain foods, weather, weather changes, or other things like exercising, getting emotional, having a cold, gerd, etc.

Coming into contact with or even doing any of these triggers can cause some very nasty things to happen to your airways. This is the first step toward having an asthma attack. Here are the three nasty things that can happen:

• The insides of your airways begin to swell up and become very sensitive. This leaves less room for air to get back and forth to your lungs when you breathe. It also causes you to cough.



• The muscles around the outsides of your airways start to get real tight. They are trying real hard to squeeze your airways shut. This makes your airways smaller, which means that there is even less room for air to get through to your lungs.



• The insides of your airways start to fill with what I call gunk or what others might call mucus or phlegm. This begins to plug up your already small airways which makes it even harder to breathe. Every time you cough, some of this gunk comes out.

Every asthma attack you have can be different. So sometimes those bad things happening to your airways can be very mild and other times they can be quite severe. They might also happen very slowly one time and then very quickly the next.

How long those things last can also be different every time. They might stop when you are no longer exposed to your triggers or they might last several days.

Once those things reach a certain severity you will then start to have what are called your typical asthma symptoms. These symptoms are the things that we associate with having an asthma attack and they are listed below:

• Coughing - with your now irritated and sensitive airways, you will be coughing quite a bit. And there will be gunk coming up when you do.



• Wheezing - this is sort of a whistling sound, usually when you breathe out. This is from your airways being much smaller than normal.



• Tightness in the chest - this can sometimes be painful also. It is from the muscles around your airways getting so tight.



• Shortness of breath - you just can't take a normal breath with your irritated airways.

When those 3 things happening to your airways are bad, then these asthma symptoms will also get bad. It is not unusual for them to get so bad that you can't breathe. If you have an inhaler, the medication will try to reduce the problems with our airways so that you can breathe more normally again.

Asthma symptoms are pretty much the same for all asthma types except for cough variant asthma. With this type of asthma, your only symptom will be a very bad cough. And this cough will be a dry cough with none of the gunk being present.

It can also be a very loud cough that is sometimes referred to as a barking cough. And the worst thing is that this cough can sometimes last for weeks. Because there are no other asthma symptoms present, this type of asthma often goes undiagnosed.

Knowing what is happening during an asthma attack should help you to keep from panicking. Getting stressed out can make your symptoms even worse. It is also important to do what you can to help someone else who is having an attack to try and stay as relaxed as possible.

In those rare cases when your inhaler isn't working like it usually does, you might be having an acute asthma attack. If that happens, then it is very important that you seek immediate medical attention. Don't wait and hope that it will get better. An acute asthma attack can be a life and death situation.