Asthma - A Brief Introduction

If you have just been diagnosed as having asthma, you are likely to be shocked and dismayed. The healthy person you used to be before the doctor broke the news has suddenly been turned into a worried patient. If it was your child who was diagnosed, you are now an anxious parent.

In fact, it is sensible to worry a little about asthma, which can still be a life-threatening illness. However, the vast majority of people with asthma live normal lives, and the aim of many asthma books are to show you how to do the same: how to get back to normal.

Asthma affects one child in ten and one adult in 20. Although it claims 2,000 lives a year, the vast majority of people with asthma (3 million in the UK) die from other causes. Nevertheless those 2,000 deaths are particularly tragic because most of them could be avoided. Doctors, friends and relatives who have witnessed a premature and unnecessary asthma death never forget the experience.

As we move towards the twenty first century, life is becoming easier for people with asthma. The early treatments simply dealt with the symptoms of the disease, because little was known about the causes and mechanism of an asthma attack. These days, the newest drugs can often suppress asthma, and, as our understanding improves, it is likely that even more effective treatments will follow.

Intensive research is now aimed at finding the reasons why asthma is on the increase at a time when living conditions have never been more comfortable and disease-free.

The effects of passive smoking, warm but poorly ventilated housing and also traffic emissions are all under suspicion. If the cause or, more likely, causes can be found, then prevention of asthma may actually prove to be the cure.

Asthma is a very individual condition and self-knowledge is an essential part of the treatment. If you or your child has been recently diagnosed with asthma, you do not need to see yourself as a victim of a terrible disease. The challenge you face is to learn all you can about your asthma. You can then use this knowledge to help you avoid those asthma attacks that are avoidable, and to control those that are inevitable.

Remember that most people with asthma are normal, healthy people who lead normal, healthy lives.