Cough is a reflex mechanism for cleansing the respiratory tract from various foreign objects: dust, allergens, microorganisms, accidentally ingested food and water, sputum in a wet cough. It is clear that a periodic cough is well within the normal range. In the end, everyone can choke while eating or drinking. However, a cough, especially if it is constant, painful and lasts for more than a week, rather speaks of a respiratory illness. In this article, we consider the relationship between prolonged cough and asthma.
Protracted cough – what is the reason?
Many people cough for months and … do not pay attention to it or explain it by simple reasons: smoking, recently transferred to acute respiratory viral infections, dirty air in cities, etc. However, doctors say that cough should be taken seriously, especially if it lasts a long time and interferes with living. Treatment of cough varies depending on the reasons that caused it.
When the patient is approached by the doctors with a prolonged cough, he is examined by peak fluorometry – the patient is asked to make the maximum possible exhalation into a special apparatus, and the rate of this exhalation is recorded. With this study, you can understand the causes of coughing, in particular, the rate of exhalation is significantly reduced in bronchial asthma, when some of the small bronchi are narrowed. Usually, after taking the medications that expand the bronchi, the test result improves.
Cough, shortness of breath and asthma
In bronchial asthma, due to the narrowing of the bronchi, exhalation is difficult, and in more severe cases, inhaled air accumulates in the lungs, causing emphysema. That is, a person cannot completely exhale all the air that has entered the lungs. At the same time, people feel that the air seems to be there, but there is not enough breathing – this is how dyspnea , one of the symptoms of bronchial asthma, is described subjectively . As the disease progresses, the patient’s condition becomes heavier. Shortness of breath increases, it becomes very difficult to exhale the air. All these symptoms are most pronounced during an attack of bronchial asthma.
Treatment of cough in bronchial asthma
After the examination, which, in addition to picfluorometry, also includes spirography and other tests, the patient will be given appropriate therapy. But if the majority of diseases require treatment when they manifest symptoms, then with bronchial asthma, treatment, including treatment of cough caused by asthma, should be carried out during a lull, otherwise there is a risk of severe complications. Moreover, treatment should begin as soon as possible, because the older the patient has bronchial asthma, the longer it lasts, the worse the prognosis. The elasticity of the bronchi decreases, emphysema occurs, the bronchi become susceptible to serious diseases. Therefore, treatment must be carried out necessarily, and for this purpose it is necessary to use modern preparations and modern methods.
Treatment methods for asthma: inhaler
The first principle of treatment: if the bronchi are narrowed – they must be expanded. This will immediately reduce shortness of breath and will also contribute to the treatment of cough. For this there are special tools – bronchodilators (bronchodilators). They are produced in the form of special devices intended for spraying the spray with which they are filled. Spray contains substances that expand the bronchi. People who are ill with bronchial asthma for a long time are familiar with these small device with strong effect – inhalers . They carry them in their bag and use them as soon as signs of an attack appear. It is important to use such preparations to provide the body with oxygen, in which it is sharply limited during an attack. Bronchodilators act quickly and expand the bronchi after a minute after inhaling the drug. Breathing is easier, and the attack passes.
If we are dealing with a child or a person whose breathing is weakened, a so-called spacer can be used instead of an inhaler. The spacer is an expanded tube or a small elongated container to which an inhaler with a bronchodilator is attached. The substance is sprayed into the spacer, and the patient can inhale not the ambient air, but the air from the spacer, which is already enriched with medicine, which goes straight into the bronchi.
Nebulizer Medicines – Future Treatment
But the most effective method that delivers drugs to the respiratory system is a compressor nebulizer. Medicinal substances are poured inside the nebulizer – either those that expand the bronchi, or relieve inflammation (bronchial asthma is an inflammatory process). The person puts on a mask attached to the nebulizer and breathes through it for 3-7 minutes. It is easy to do this procedure and you need to repeat it regularly.
Why do you need a nebulizer? The air under pressure breaks the liquid part of the drug into the smallest droplets that do not settle in the mouth, as during normal inhalation over boiling water or potatoes, but penetrate deep into the respiratory tract, reaching the smallest bronchi – bronchioles. Thus, the bronchi expand, and the person begins to breathe normally. The nebulizer treatment method is suitable for both children and adults, and today it is considered the best method to combat bronchial asthma.
Asthma and heredity
Bronchial asthma is not a hereditary disease, only the predisposition to it is transmitted to offspring. Studies have shown that if both parents are sick with bronchial asthma, then the probability that their child will receive the same diagnosis is 70%. If one of the parents is sick, the probability will be 45%.
In Russia, as doctors note, everyone is afraid of the diagnosis of “bronchial asthma.” But today this disease is very well treated. It is possible and necessary to get rid of asthma attacks. Therefore, if a person does not have a cough for too long, it makes sense and it is even recommended to consult a doctor and conduct research tests for bronchial asthma. If there is an asthma problem, then drugs against it will quickly help to cope with coughing and shortness of breath, which will significantly improve the patient’s quality of life.
Unfortunately, the complete withdrawal of the diagnosis of bronchial asthma is a difficult question. To do this, you need to make sure that the allergic inflammation, which was the primary cause of asthma, has stopped in the bronchi. However, pediatricians know that in most cases, if a child has had bronchial asthma since childhood, and she was treated properly , then by the period of puberty seizures become very rare, and the disease is almost gone.