There are many factors that can cause the appearance of asthma and its symptoms, while medication is often the only treatment offered by doctors as there is no know medical cure for the condition.
Here in this article we are going to take a closer look at what is known about the cause of this condition, or specifically what modern medicine perceives to be the root cause of it. We also take a look at its major symptoms and the medications offered by the medical profession to relieve those symptoms and make breathing easier.
The general answer to that question given by medical experts is that it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what causes it to appear in people. To discover the exact cause would require a barrage of tests to be run on the individual.
There may well be many other factors that cause this condition to manifest, but these listed above are those best known at present.
So now we know many of the things that can cause this problem, we'll now take a look at what the some of its symptoms.
Asthma is a condition that specifically affects the airways, or bronchial passageways that make up the body's respiratory system. In layman's terms, these are the small tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs.
When a person suffering from this condition comes into contact with something that irritates their airways (known as an asthma trigger), the muscles surrounding the walls of the airways tighten causing the airways to become narrower. The lining of the airways also becomes inflamed and starts to swell.
Sometimes a sticky mucus or phlegm layer builds up which can further narrow the airways, making breathing more difficult.
The upshot of this is that all these reactions will cause the airways to become narrower and irritated in some way. The whole process makes it progressively more difficult to breath than normal and leading to potentially dangerous blocking of the breathing passages if not treated quickly.
Not everyone will display all of these symptoms. Some people can experience them from time to time and also a few people may experience these symptoms all the time.
The medication prescribed for this illness takes many forms. But primarily there are two main types that are used with inhalers to direct the medication directly to the airways and ensure that almost none of that medication is wasted.
There are preventative inhalers that contain mild steroid medication to gradually reduce the inflammation and swelling of the airways to help to prevent future attacks from taking place.
Then there are the reliever inhalers that contain medication to quickly relieve the symptoms of inflammation and the resultant reduction of the size of the airways as they occur.
The actual types of medication and their properties used in both preventative and reliever inhalers comprise corticosteroids which are discussed in our article on common treatments for asthma although their medical descriptions and explanations can be quite in depth and outside the scope of this website.