For twenty years, the number of allergies and asthma is increasing in France, but also around the world.
* Asthma affects in France more than 3 million people, one third are aged under fifteen.
* 8% of adults and 6 to 10% of children have asthma
* 10 to 18% of adolescents with asthma
* 1500 people, including over a third are teenagers still die of asthma in France and in spite of very effective treatments.
* Asthma is responsible for 600 000 hospital days
* Asthma costs 1 billion in health costs.
* Barely one third of asthmatics, about one million patients only after treatment and 40% of them are correct.
* Asthma is a common cause of school absenteeism
* A future asthma born in France every ten minutes
* Asthma is the chronic disease most common in children
* 6 to 8 people die every day from a severe asthma attack.
* The results of the study ** AIRE (Asthma Insight and Reality in Europe), the largest ever study on asthma in Europe, has brought to light that only 5% of asthma patients are treated according to European recommendations international force.
The typical asthma
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways that involves several processes:
* A hyper-reactivity of the bronchi
* A local inflammation and thickening of bronchial walls accompany the formation of mucus.
* A reduction of the diameter of the bronchi called bronchoconstriction.
In a typical attack of asthma: the bronchial tubes contract, develop edema which decreases their diamètre.Elles clogged and prevent air circulation.
This inflammation of the lungs prevents the passage of air and causes the manifestations of asthma.
The discomfort felt during the events is caused by the difficulty of the passage of air into the airways.
The airway inflammation is prolonged even in the absence of events, which may induce asthma to interrupt their treatment.
Chronic inflammation causes remodeling of bronchial asthma worsening disease if no treatment is put back in place.
* The asthmatic difficulty to inhale and exhale the air in his lungs.
* A cough and wheezing characteristic accompany the discomfort.
Other manifestations of asthma, less typical and delayed diagnosis of disease
The diagnosis of asthma and typical feature is fairly straightforward.
A large majority of asthmatics do not present a crisis of this type whistling and live for years with asthma evolving slowly but surely.
Many people are so embarrassed for years by events no less impressive as the diagnosis is made.
* Episodes of cough lasting for several weeks or months or years, occurring most often at night, during the night that the effort can also be signs of asthma.
* Episodes of recurrent bronchitis may also be evidence of asthma
* Shortness of breath, sensation seeking his breath are elements that symbolize the asthmatic disease.
* Some adult children are very tired of showing the disease.
* A frequent cough, persistent for several weeks after nasopharyngitis.
Many people have for years events of this type are not diagnosed as being related to asthma. The disease, untreated, worsens gradually and may, years later progressed to respiratory failure in severe consequences and sometimes more difficult to control.
Some asthmatics never make asthma
* Asthma is an insidious disease that can progress slowly without the patient noticing.
* Many people live well for years with a breath “a little short” that worsens gradually without further event.
* These people restricted in their daily lives for years do not imagine for a moment that they have asthma.
* Even their practitioner has difficulty in making this diagnosis because these people do not wheeze so characteristic of disease.
* Unfortunately, it happens one day, suddenly, often between 50 and 60 years, protests escalate abruptly, even tragically.
Asthma can be compared to an iceberg whose visible part is the typical crisis with its whistles and the submerged, invisible to most insidious manifestations, less easy to relate to asthma, such as shortness of breath, coughing eg.
Recognizing the manifestations of asthma
Recognizing the signs to suggest the diagnosis of asthma is probably the most important advice that patients should know.
Detect manifestations of this disease could help thousands of people who can then consult a doctor who knows well the diagnosis and treatment of this disease.
Simple questions should be routinely asked of all people with asthma during a consultation.
Responses to assess the discomfort of the patient and adjust treatment.
* Discomfort during certain activities like playing sports or running after a bus for example, at home or at work
* Shortness of breath: when the rise of 2 or 3 floors, while walking or at rest
* Awakened or night or earlier than usual with cough, breathlessness, chest tightness, wheezing, chest pain.
* Using the inhaler bronchodilator frequently
* Fatigue common efforts for minor
* Discomfort in the phone, often intriguing situation interlocutors’ is bizarre, you have breath? ”
* Presence of one or more bronchitis who have a prolonged cough for several weeks.
Some practitioners do not always think the diagnosis of asthma, often very difficult when the patient does not present typical crisis with its whistling. They can then sometimes tell the patient that he did not have asthma. The diagnosis of this disease is sometimes difficult and requires regular practice. Please urge your doctor if you think you may be embarrassed and ask to see a specialist or to conduct a PFT, pulmonary function test that only the precise diagnosis of asthma.
A newborn who has at least three episodes of wheezing, shortness of breath, or more wheezy bronchitis bronchitis “asthma” before the age of two should be considered as an asthmatic child.
Fatigue is sometimes the only manifestation of the asthmatic disease
The only discomfort that some describe asthma is worsening fatigue at work, sometimes minor, everyday.
* Walking, climbing stairs, shopping are sometimes insurmountable effort that patients can not imagine being caused by asthma.
* Some asthmatics and live for decades with fatigue caused by a blockage, most often severe enough, their airways.
* When a doctor makes the diagnosis, sometimes by accident or subsequent to an episode of superinfection or worsening of the disease, these patients are surprised to note the dramatic improvement of their “form” and their fatigue with the treatments.
