Health Conditions

Asthma can occur at any age, and often occurs in families, but it is not contagious. Asthma affects persons from diverse cultural, racial and economic backgrounds.

The effects of asthma can vary from person to person and over time. It can be intermittent or mildly persistent in some patients, and moderately persistent or severe in others. Some children suffer from moderate asthma that becomes much milder when they grow into adulthood. Other people only suffer from asthma at a certain time of the year. For some, asthma causes mild symptoms once in a while. For others, every day can be a struggle to breathe. Some asthma attacks last only a few minutes; others continue for days. Some asthma attacks are just an inconvenience. Others quickly become life threatening.

Doctors do not completely understand the mechanisms of asthma. They do not know the exact cause, nor can they explain why one person gets asthma and another doesn't. At the present time, there is no cure for asthma. However, physicians are learning more and more about the changes that occur inside the airways in an asthma attack, and they have developed effective strategies to relieve the symptoms and to limit the inflammation that is the underlying cause of an asthma episode. A patient working in partnership with his/her doctor can control his/her asthma with medication and management techniques so that it rarely progresses into a full-blown attack.

Although new strategies for controlling asthma are widely available, they do not appear to be utilized to full advantage by the nation's asthma sufferers. A recently released large scale study, called Asthma in America found that the majority of asthma sufferers in the United States do not understand that their disease is a result of chronic lung inflammation and, as a result, suffer needlessly. In fact, the survey suggests that many asthma patients underestimate the severity of their condition and take medication only when they have symptoms. Moreover in 2003, just one in nine asthma sufferers took a long-term anti-inflammatory medication that would help them avoid an asthma attack. As a result, almost half of all asthma patients -an estimated six million Americans - were hospitalized, treated in emergency rooms or required other urgent care for asthma in 2002-2003.

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Note: The above information is intended to supplement, not substitute for, the expertise and judgment of your physician, pharmacist, or other healthcare professional. It is not intended to diagnose a health condition, but it can be used as a guide to help you decide if you should seek professional treatment or to help you learn more about your condition once it has been diagnosed.