Asthma
is quite a common disease and it would not be surprising if you or a loved one has
just been diagnosed with it or maybe you have been dealing with it for years. In
either of these cases, you probably have lots of questions, not only about what
asthma is but also as to why it keeps reoccurring in spite of all the care you
take.
Asthma
is basically a long-term respiratory condition that affects your airways – the
tubes that carry air in and out of your lungs. You could say that someone with
asthma has sensitive airways that are ready to react when they come into
contact with something they don’t like (asthma triggers).
An
asthma attack is a hypersensitive response to a trigger. It is similar in a way
to an allergic reaction, where the body’s immune system responds to an invader.
When
the cells of the immune system sense an invader (tobacco smoke, molds, dust,
certain foods, pollen etc), they set off a series of reactions that help fight
of the invader.
Researchers
are still not sure exactly what causes this hypersensitive reaction, but they
do know that it can be caused by both genetics and the environment factors.
Hence children born to parents who have asthma have a higher risk of suffering
from asthma.
Besides
this inherited tendency it is also thought that the modern obsession with a
very clean environment in early life, where parents avoid children to be
exposed to dirt, dust, pets, certain foods, etc causes further harm to
children. Just like any other muscle in our body, the immune system needs to be
exposed to different substances in order to fully develop so that it recognises
which substances are harmless and which
are not.
Similarly,
overuse of medications to treat trivial ailments like runny nose, coughs, skin
rash also never allows the immune system to develop to its full potential.
When
a person with asthma comes into contact with asthma triggers that irritate
their sensitive airways, it causes their body to react in three ways:
1.Inflammation
(swelling)
of the lining of the airways. When the airway lining swells because of
inflammation, there is less room for air to flow in and out. This swelling can
last for weeks after an acute episode, called an asthma attack, or may become a
condition that never completely goes away.
2.Bronchospasm is caused by tightening
of the muscles that surround the airways. This narrows the airway, preventing
air from getting in or out of the lungs.
3.Excessive
mucus is
produced in the lungs and often blocks the airways.
These
reactions cause the airways to become narrow and irritated, making it difficult
to breath and leading to asthma symptoms such as chest tightness, frequent
cough, wheezing, difficulty breathing with exercise, coughing during the night,
shortness of breath, frequent respiratory illnesses or pneumonia, inward
movement of the muscles in the neck, chest or ribs or flaring of the nostrils,
difficulty breathing while walking or talking and a change in skin, fingernail
or lip colour to grey or blue.
Treating the cause
Symptoms
vary from child to child and from episode to episode. The key to successful
treatment depends on what is being treated – the cause or effect. Standard treatment usually
consists of treating the effect i.e. medication aimed at relaxing and widening
the airways (bronchodilators) and medications to clear the airway of mucus so
that more oxygen can get in, allowing breathing to get easier. The child feels
better for a while, but the very next exposure to the trigger causes a
recurrence of the effect and so another puff of bronchodilators and the process
continues.
Most
prescribed medications only treat the symptom; they don’t help tone down your
hyper reacting immune system. This can be done through Immuno Modulation, which
is aimed at toning done the hyper sensitive immune reaction. It can be achieved
through holistic sciences aimed at targeting the hypersensitive immune system
rather than only treating the effect- narrowed air ways.
Such
treatments should reverse the journey of the disease i.e. from the lower
respiratory tract back to the skin.
Coughs should improve, followed by runny nose and sneezing and finally a rash
should appear for a short time back on the skin. Parents beware not to suppress
the rash this time round, for if you do so, the asthma will comeback.
The
outcome of every treatment always depends on what we treat the cause or effect?
When you meet with your healthcare provider, you need to learn whether the drugs
they have prescribed are going to make your body stronger and healthier and
whether they address the cause or symptoms.
Are
cholesterol lowering drugs and blood pressure medications helping your heart,
or are they just lowering the markers we measure that tell us our
cardiovascular system is in jeopardy? Are the acid blockers and antacids fixing
your digestive system, or are they just reducing the pain in your tummy? Are
pain medications for arthritis, joint pain, or fibromyalgia fixing the problem,
or are they only disrupting the pain signals your body is sending? Are hormone
replacement drugs balancing out the imbalance by adding hormones, or addressing
what’s causing the imbalance so you don’t need to take the hormones?
The
challenge is that most parents want a new result but continue to act in the
same way. We continue doing the same thing over and over again and expect a
different result. It’s time to treat the cause not the effect.
The writers are consultants at VitaNova Clinics, Goa