COPD and Asthma

What Is Asthma?

Asthma is a common disease of the respiratory system where the passageways in the lungs remain inflamed, causing breathing difficulties. Asthma affects people of all ages but it is more common in children.

Asthma cannot be cured although it can disappear in some patients with age. Symptoms can be controlled with medication, typically inhalers. There are two types, preventers and controller inhalers depending on the patient’s asthma progression. 

What is an Asthma Attack?

The swelling in your lungs causes the muscles around the airways to become tight and rigid making. This causes a vast shortness of breath. Attacks usually happen when a foreign substance triggers your symptoms, although in those with very poorly controlled asthma it can happen spontaneously. A mild attack can be treated at home with a preventer inhaler but a severe attack requires urgent medical attention and hospital admission. 

Symptoms of an asthma attack include anxiety, panic, rapid breathing, pale and clammy skin.

Symptoms

Asthma is a chronic disease with the following symptoms:

• Tightness of chest
• Wheezing
• Coughing
• Shortness of breath
• Excessive mucus production

What is COPD?

COPD (Chronic Pulmonary Obstructive Disease) is a progressive disease affecting the lungs that makes it more difficult to breathe. The condition includes:

• Chronic bronchitis - long-term inflammation of the airways
• Emphysema - damage to the air sacks

It is linked with smoking as well as those who have been exposed to lung irritants over a long period of time (i.e., dusty/smoky work environments)

What causes COPD?

There are not many known causes:

1. Smoking

2. Air pollutants and long-term exposure to lung irritants

3. A rare genetic condition called Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency

4. Asthma - when symptoms become less reversible

Smoking, and inhaling lung irritants, over a long period of time is the most common cause of COPD. 90% of patients with COPD have probably developed it due to smoking. Just being exposed to second hand smoke regularly can be enough to trigger the disease.

Symptoms

Include: 

• Breathlessness
• Frequent chest infections
• Wheezing
• Phlegmy, chesty cough
• Chest pain
• Fatigue
• Weight loss
• Swollen ankles

Treatments

Treatments can include:

• Stopping smoking - the absolute first step for any smokers with COPD.
• Medicines - these include inhalers and mucolytics to help move mucus. They can also include steroids and antibiotics for those that experience increased amounts of respiratory infection.
• Pulmonary rehabilitation - i.e., breathing exercises
• Surgery - including lung transplant