World Asthma Day: You Can Control It
Since 1998, World Asthma Day has been celebrated every May 5. It is a day that had its origin in the first World Meeting on Asthma that took place in Spain that year.
Annually, World Asthma Day is sustained and stimulated by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). Through various slogans it is proposed to educate about the disease. Both the general population and asthma patients themselves need to be aware of the pathology.
There are very disparate data around the world on the prevalence of asthma. Countries like Germany register that only less than 4% of the population suffers from it, but that value reaches more than 25% in New Zealand, for example. In general terms, it is accepted that around 4 out of 1,000 adults are diagnosed each year in the world.
World Asthma Day also warns about hospitalizations and emergency requirements for these patients. Asthmatic attacks can be very traumatic, especially in families with children who suffer from it.
The sensation of extreme shortness of breath, together with the pain when breathing that sometimes accompanies, generates a dramatic picture. The greater the knowledge, the better the approach to the problem and avoidable anxieties are reduced.
What is asthma?
Asthma is basically an inflammatory bronchial disease. The lower airways of asthma patients become inflamed in acute attacks and obstruct the passage of air.
In the same way, the muscles of the respiratory system also tend to generate closure, which makes expiration even more difficult, that is, the exit to the outside of the air that entered the lungs. This narrowing is what triggers the symptoms.
Asthmatic patients suffer from shortness of breath that varies according to the intensity of the attack. In very acute attacks, the feeling of suffocation is extreme.
Along with shortness of breath, wheezing may be heard. Wheezing is a whistling sound that is released from the bronchial tubes as pressurized air passes through them. The narrowing causes wheezing, which can be heard without the need for a stethoscope when the asthmatic attack is severe.
The cough is variable; sometimes it is present and other times it is not. It is usually a dry cough, without phlegm production, since when phlegm is present they warn of an infectious process.