Asthma: My Personal Battle and Understanding

Living with Asthma

THE STORY OF MY SEARCH

Of all the things to be unacceptable at in life, breathing has to be one of them. 1 in 12 people in the U.S. have asthma, with the numbers increasing every year. Most may not believe asthma to be a killer disease, when in all actuality, approximately 10 Americans die of asthma each day, and about 4,000 each year. Over the last 16 years, asthma has played a huge impact in my life. Having to continuously make trips to the hospital every couple months due to asthma attacks triggered by unknown reasons. Getting medications upon medications and breathing treatment after breathing treatment, they were finally able to get my O2 levels back to stable conditions. A great amount of knowledge and experience goes into knowing how to live with asthma and what to do under certain circumstances in case of an asthma attack.

Many just think of asthma as not being able to breath under certain conditions, which would be a very simplistic explanation. In medical term, what is asthma really? Asthma is a chronic, long term, lung disease influencing the airways that carry air in and out of the lungs. With asthma, those airways, also known as tubes, become inflamed and narrow. When this

Some triggers to asthma may consist of allergies, air pollutants(smoke, mold or even fumes), and obesity. Allergies can initiate an allergic reaction which could then trigger asthma symptoms. Smoke settles in the moist lining of your airways and damages the thin structures known as cilia. Cilia cleans all the dust and mucus from those airways. Therefor without these hairlike networks present, particles accumulate and build up occur. Smoke, also can cause more mucus to form, which can, in turn, trigger an asthma attack. Obesity puts you at an increased risk of developing asthma. Being obese puts more abdominal fat on the lungs and limits their inflation capacities, impairing lung