Asthma and Allergies – Symptoms and Triggers

Asthma can be scary. I suffered from it for years along with various allergies and did not suspect that there are common factors to these health problems. Getting some more information and  understanding what these hidden connectors are may help you.

Gasping and struggling for breath can be a frightening experience. Asthma is a common and sometimes fatal disease and the more you know about your asthma the better.

Allergic Asthma Symptoms

We’ll start with the Symptoms of asthma. You may not suffer from all of these but the usual symptoms are

•    Wheezing so that you sound like a whistle or an accordion!
•    Shortness of breath or maybe even struggling for each breath
•    Tightness around the chest
•    Coughing – especially at night

If the symptoms get worse, for example, if the shortness of breath is serious enough to prevent walking, emergency treatment is in order

Emergency Asthma Symptoms from Allergic and Non Allergic Asthma

Asthma is sometimes thought of as just something you will grow out of. But it can be serious and may require emergency treatment. What are the warning signs that may indicate that emergency attention is in order?

These include

•    Extreme difficulty breathing
•    High levels of Anxiety
•    Rapid pulse
•    Sweating
•    Blue tinge to the lips and face

- experiencing these symptoms is a good reason to seek emergency treatment. Thousands of people die each year from Asthma getting out of control, so these symptoms are to be taken very seriously.

Allergy Asthma Triggers

An asthma attack can be triggered by many different factors, ranging from airborne particles, eating particular foods, inhaling cold air or even psychological stress. Each factor needs to be looked at individually along with a sympathetic and experienced Health Care professional and measures taken to reduce the likelihood of that factor causing a problem

Airborne Allergens – this includes many different particles such as dust and dust mites, pollen and animal dander.

Keeping your bedroom dust free is a major help to reduce the load your body is carrying from airborne triggers. Dusting and washing floors and other surfaces to a higher standard than is needed for normal household cleanliness will help the asthmatic whose asthma is affected by airborne allergens.

Special sheets and pillow cases can be obtained and in more serious cases a HEPA filter can be used to remove airborne allergens from the air in the bedroom.

Food Allergy - it may surprise some folks to hear that their asthma is due to something they eat and their Doctor may dismiss the idea too, but there are solid scientific trials that prove that in some people,  asthma is caused or at least triggered by something in the diet.

This could be found out by using a Food and Mood diary but it can be hard to spot the problem food sometimes and with the help of a Nutrition Expert you may be best advised just to go on to a very healthy diet for a while and see if your symptoms reduce. It may take quite a while for this to happen but if it does you know how to control your asthma!! And that may mean no more need to take medicine and no trips to the Emergency Room!! Well worth doing then eh?

Whether the effect of the diet is due to not eating food additives that themselves may trigger asthma or whether it is due to the extra vitamins and other nutrients in a healthier diet is not clear. Truth is, it can be a bit of each.

Psychological Triggers – this is the hardest to write about because I am not saying that “asthma is all in your mind“…

Not at all!

Most of asthma is clearly “All in your chest”, but an asthma attack may be triggered by stress and how we handle it. That means that learning how to deal with stress better and even learning to relax very deeply, perhaps using Hypnotherapy could be useful things for you to explore.

Allergy Asthma information is widespread but most of it is circulated by companies wanting to sell you more meds!

That’s OK but it’s good to hear the other side of the story and on this website I like to publish information on natural approaches to Allergic asthma and on measures you can take yourself in your own home.