Asthma

            
             Asthma is a lung disease that can be treated. It is a chronic inflammatory disease of the respiratory system that results in relapsing symptoms. In simpler terms, asthma is the narrowing of the airways in the lungs that causes wheezing, coughing, and gasping for breath. It is a very unpredictable disease and can differ greatly from one person to the next. Some people have very mild symptoms every once and a while where as for others it is a daily struggle to breath. Asthma can occur at any age but most commonly begins with in the first five years of life. Approximately 7% of Americans suffer from asthma, which is roughly 18 million people, 4.8 million of which are children. Asthma is the leading cause for hospitalization among children and is the most common long-term childhood disease. "African-Americans are four times as likely as whites to be hospitalized and three times as likely to die from asthma (5)." This is partially because asthma is more sever in urban inner cities. Although many cases of asthma have been identified in the United States, many cases are likely to go undiagnosed. .
             There are eight main signs or symptoms that help identify asthma trouble. The four most common are recurrent wheezing, shortness of breath, feelings of tightness in the chest, and a cough that lasts over a week. Two symptoms are more prominent in children than in adults. They are blue nails and lips, sudden anxiety and apprehension. The last two symptoms to watch out for are when breathing out takes longer than breathing in and when breathing is faster than normal. These symptoms usually occur in episodes and are often called asthma attacks. "When an asthma attack occurs, three major changes take place in the lungs. 1. Cells in the air tubes make more mucus than normal. 2. Cells in the airways get inflamed causing air tubes to swell. 3. The muscles around the air tubes tighten. These changes cause the air tubes to narrow which makes it hard to breath (3).