Steroid Resisitant Asthma

Asthma is usually a steroid responsive disease. A few patients respond poorly to these drugs, and others need such high doses to control the disease that side-effects become a serious problem. The term steroid resistant asthma is used for both groups. In some patients, factors may be operating to make the asthma worse and, thus, to increase the requirement for steroids.

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Occupational Asthma

Occupational asthma is a lung disorder in which substances found in the workplace cause the airways of the lungs to swell and narrow, leading to attacks of wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and coughing.

Many substances in the workplace can cause occupational asthma. The most common triggers are wood dust, grain dust, animal dander, fungi, or other chemicals (especially diisocyanates).
Though the actual rate of occurrence of occupational asthma is unknown, it is suspected to cause 2 - 20% of all asthma cases in industrialized nations.
The following workers are at higher risk:

• Bakers
• Detergent manufacturers
• Drug manufacturers
• Farmers
• Grain elevator workers
• Laboratory workers
• Metal workers
• Millers
• Plastics workers
• Woodworkers

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Nocturnal Asthma

Nocturnal asthma is also called as Nighttime Asthma. It has symptoms like chest tightness, shortness of breath, cough, and wheezing at night, can make sleep impossible and leave you feeling tired and irritable during the day. These problems may affect your quality of life overall and make it more difficult to control your daytime asthma symptoms.
Nocturnal or nighttime asthma is very serious. It needs a proper asthma diagnosis and effective asthma treatment.

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Exercise-Induced Asthma

Even exercise can induce an asthma attack in people who have no other triggers and do not experience asthma under any other circumstances.People with exercise-induced asthma are believed to be more sensitive to changes in the temperature and humidity of the air.When you are at rest, you breathe through your nose, which serves to warm, humidify, and cleanse the air you inhale to make it more like the air in the lungs.

When you are exercising, you breathe through your mouth, and the air that hits your lungs is colder and drier. The contrast between the warm air in the lungs and the cold inhaled air or the dry inhaled air and moist air in the lungs, can trigger an attack.

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Intrinsic Asthma

Intrinsic asthma, is a nonseasonal, nonallergic form of asthma, which usually first occurs later in life than allergic asthma and tends to be chronic and persistent rather than episodic. Precipitating factors include inhalation of irritating pollutants, such as dust particles, smoke, aerosols, strong cooking odors, and paint fumes and other volatile substances. Intrinsic asthma may also be triggered by exposure to cold, damp weather; sudden inhalation of cold, dry air; physical exercise; violent coughing or laughing; respiratory infections, such as the common cold; or psychologic factors, such as anxiety.

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Allergic Asthma

Most people find several things trigger their asthma. Some of the most common predisposing factors for asthma are allergies to:

• House dust mites
• Mould spores
• Pollen
• Pets
• Food or food preservative

Allergic asthma is the most common type of asthma. Inhaling specific substances called allergens (listed above) brings on the asthma symptoms associated with allergic asthma. Nearly everyone with asthma allergic or non-allergic gets worse after exercising in cold air or after inhaling any type of smoke, dust, fumes, and sometimes strong smells.
Because allergens are everywhere, it's important that people with allergic asthma understand their allergy and asthma triggers. And then learn the facts about preventing asthma symptoms. If anyone has allergic asthma, their airways are hypersensitive to the allergens to which they have become sensitized. Once these allergens get into your airways, your immune system overreacts. The muscles around your airways tighten. The airways themselves become inflamed and flooded with thick mucus.

Whether you have allergic asthma or non-allergic asthma, the symptoms of asthma is generally the same and may include any or all of the following:

• Coughing
• Wheezing
• Shortness of breath
• Rapid breathing
• Tightening of the chest

 

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Asthma

Asthma is a chronic lung disease that inflames and narrows the airways. Symptoms of Asthma are recurring periods of wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath and coughing. The coughing often occurs at night or early in the morning. They tend to react strongly to certain substances that are breathed in. As a result muscles around them tighten. This causes the airways to narrow, and less air flows to lungs. The swelling also can worsen, making the airways even narrower. Cells in the airways may make more mucus than normal. Mucus is a sticky, thick liquid that can further narrow airways. About 12 percent of children (< 18 years) and 8 percent of pregnant women have asthma.
Its diagnosis is usually made based on the pattern of symptoms and/or response to therapy over time. In 2009 asthma caused 250,000 deaths globally.

Types of Asthma:

• Allergic Asthma
• Intrinsic Asthma
• Exercise-Induced Asthma
• Nocturnal Asthma
• Occupational Asthma
• Steroid-Resistant Asthma

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