What is Asthma? And How Does it Affect You?

Asthma is a disease that affects the lungs. It is one of the most common, if not, the most common long-term illnesses in children and teenagers, although adults can also get it. Asthma causes shortness of breath, chest tightness, wheezing and coughing at night or early in the morning. If you have asthma, you will have the disease all the time, but you will have attacks only when something affects your lungs.

Now, while we don't know all the things that can cause asthma due to there being just a staggering amount of causes, but we do know that genetic, environmental, and occupational factors have been linked to asthma. If someone in your immediate family has asthma, you are more likely to develop it. Atopy, the genetic tendency to have an allergic disease, can play a significant role in the development of allergic asthma. However, not all cases of asthma are cases of allergic asthma.


Being exposed to elements in the environment — such as mold or moisture, some allergens such as dust mites and second-hand tobacco smoke — has been linked to the development of asthma. Air pollution and viral infection of the lungs can also cause asthma.


Occupational asthma occurs when someone who has never had asthma develops it because they are exposed to something at work. This can happen if you have an allergy to something at work, like mould; or if at work you are exposed to irritants such as sawdust or chemicals, over and over at lower levels, or just once at higher levels. You can purchase great and effective asthma treatments such as the Clenil inhaler and Symbicort inhaler online in the UK at pharmacy planet.


If you’re wondering on how it can affect you. An asthma attack can include coughing, chest tightness, wheezing, and shortness of breath (Breathlessness). The asthma attack occurs in the airways, which are the tubes that carry air to the lungs. As the air passes through the lungs, the airways become smaller, like the branches of a tree moving away from the trunk. During an asthma attack, the walls of the airways in the lungs become inflamed, causing the airways to narrow. Less air enters and leaves the lungs, and the body produces mucus that further blocks the airways.