Chronic asthma is a chronic inflammatory lung disease that causes airways to tighten and narrow, causing difficulty in breathing. It is an chronic allergic condition which often begins in early childhood.
When the airways become irritated, they become narrower obstructing air from moving in and out easily. Exposure to allergies, viral infections causing cough and cold, smoke, dust and pollution causes the mucous membranes in the small branches of the sensitive airways (bronchi) to swell and fill with mucus which makes breathing a struggle. Asthma attacks can also be triggered by hard physical exertion (exercise induced asthma) and can also be related to genetics. This can cause, coughing, chest tightness, shortness of breath and produces a wheezing sound when breathing out.
The symptoms, frequency, severity and duration of an asthma episode vary from child to child. Severity of the attack depends of the extent to which bronchi are narrowed. In a severe attack, the child may be so breathless that he may not be able to speak and may show a bluish colour of the skin and mucus membranes due to lack of oxygen in the blood. In such cases emergency medical care is needed.
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