Asthma is a disease of the respiratory tract that can lead to restriction of the passage of the air causing breathlessness that may be severe or just mild. In most people the disease lay undetected for long durations of time because of the mildness of symptoms. But in the cases where there are severe symptoms of breathlessness and choking the disease needs to be addressed properly. This is because the asthmatic attacks of breathlessness can trigger off at any time without warning. The more severe attacks can be very distressful to the victim and can even lead to fatal situations.

We have all seen people who may be suffering from the disease. They are all around us and it is just not a pleasant sight to see a person struggling helplessly for breath. So it is important to understand this disease thoroughly so that enough precautions can be taken and if need be, help may be extended to the people in distress and in need of medical attention. This becomes all the more important in the context that this disease can attack people at any stage in life and even smaller children are no exceptions to it.

As mentioned earlier asthma is a disease of the respiratory tract and causes breathlessness. This happens because in this disease the air passage becomes constricted occasionally due to accumulation of mucous in the tract or some other sort of inflammation. This hampers the free flow of air through the passage so that there is considerable difficulty in breathing.

The difficulty in breathing may range from just a mild irritation and blockage to very severe choking and complete breathlessness. It is a well known fact that a person cannot survive without respiration for more than two minutes. This makes the disease very serious as it may lead to fatal situations within a very short span of time. Also because the disease gets aggravated due to certain external and internal triggers, it becomes very mandatory to identify them properly in order to safeguard oneself from the bouts of this dreaded disease.

The common triggers that can lead to attacks of asthma are allergens of any kind, bad bouts of cold and other viral infections, exertion because of excessive exercise and also emotional stress. Allergens are the triggers that cause any kind of allergic reaction in a human being. They are also the most tricky to detect as there are absolutely innumerable allergens. And also because a person may all of a sudden get an allergic reaction to any substance that he or she may be using without any ill effects earlier.

The allergy tests are tedious and very painful at times. For asthmatics these triggers may be in the form of different kinds of foods, dust or other external allergens like pollen grains of some plants, dander of some animals, some kinds of perfumes, some kinds of pollutants, some kinds of smoke like charcoal and cigarette smoke. If a person knows about the allergic reactions of certain substances on his or her body, preventing an attack becomes easy.

Generally in kids it becomes very difficult to detect the allergens. Mostly in kids asthma gets triggered off after viral infections or strong bouts of colds and coughs. Mucous that gets accumulated in the respiratory tract and during the bouts of colds is called phlegm and it may sometimes restrict the passage of airway to the extent of creating mild to severe breathlessness triggering off an asthmatic attack.

Other allergens also act in the same way as accumulation of mucous in the sense that they too enhance the production of mucous in the nasal passage which may cause swelling and inflammation of the lining of the air passage and lead to partial or total restriction of the air passage. This constriction of the nasal passage produces symptoms of shortness of breath, wheezing and coughing. These are the symptoms that usually respond to bronchodilators.

Asthma is a disease that may trouble one person everyday and another may be troubled by it only occasionally. The geneticists also suspect some genetic influence on the disease. But clear evidence is lacking in this area as the various results obtained have mystified and baffled the scientists all the more.

The doctors generally do not take this disease as a very serious ailment especially in the people who only exhibit very simple and mild symptoms. But if the same symptoms may become grave in their intensity the situation becomes very different. Also in kids the severity of the symptoms may be a cause of concern even if the symptoms are mild.

Most of the people suffering form asthma soon learn to cope up with it as the disease strikes them a few times. But for some others it may have quite a crippling effect. This is again largely dependent upon the severity of the symptoms. But at the same time a person's threshold and capacity of endurance also play a large role. Most of the time the mild symptoms can be very effectively controlled with the help of modern day medicines.

Only in very severe cases of asthmatic attacks the disease may assume life threatening proportions. Also as the children grow older and their capacity for endurance as well as their immunity becomes more enhanced the disease may stop manifesting altogether at best or at least grow very mild in symptoms. It is often seen that many children naturally outgrow the disease with the passage of time.