Asthma in Children-Overview, Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment

asthma-in-children-overview-causes-symptoms-diagnosis-and-treatmentAsthma produces swelling and inflammation in the respiratory airways that head to the lungs and make them narrower, making it difficult to breath for your child. Asthma can affect your children in many different ways. Some asthma attacks take place during allergy season or when they exercise, others are chronic and more severe. Even though this is a lifelong disease and there is no complete cure, you must handle the condition with care to keep your child’s airways controlled which is the only way of ensuring a lively lifestyle for them.

Causes of Asthma in Children: Asthma experts couldn’t detect any definite cause yet but there are few common issues that lead to an asthmatic discomfort. First and the foremost is the heredity issue. It’s been observed that children with asthmatic parents are more likely to be an asthmatic. Besides, people with allergies are more common with asthma. Pollution is another reason of asthma and makes an asthmatic condition worse.

Symptoms of Asthma in Children: Symptoms of asthma can be both mild and sever. A child with asthma may:

• Wheeze, making a soft or loud whistling noise while breathing.

• Cough a lot.

• Have sleeping difficulties due to wheezing and coughing.

• Feel short of breath.

• Feel tightness in his or her chest.

• Gets tired quickly during exercise.

All these symptoms may get worse during night time.

How to Diagnose Asthma in Children: After reviewing the symptoms of you child, a physician may suggest you to do tests like:

Spirometry: This test gives a thorough reading of how quickly and how much air the child can shift in and out of the lungs. However, this test is only for children over 5 years and in case of babies, doctors usually listen and analyze the wheezing rate manually.

Peak Expiratory Flow: This shows the power of your child’s lungs at his or her maximum effort.

Chest X-Ray: This is done to find out if there are some other diseases that are creating the symptoms.

Allergy Tests: To ensure that the symptoms are not arising due to any kind of allergies.

Routine checkup of your child in an asthmatic condition is a must so that doctors can keep good track of the situation and treat accordingly.

Treatment of Asthma in Children: There are two techniques of treating asthma in children. The purposes are to:

• Control asthma for a longer period of time. This incorporates a written daily treatment plan that helps you keeping track of routine reactions and improvements of the symptoms. Controller medicines are the key factor of this technique that reduce the airway swellings of your child and prevent attacks.

• Treat asthma attacks when they take place. This form of treatment features an asthma action plan with detailed guidelines about steps to be taken during an asthma attack. This method is helpful to identify the triggers and quick-relief medicines like albuterol are being used to overcome the attack.

The best means of getting the most medicine into the lungs of your child is to use an inhaler with a spacer. If your child requires using the fast-relief inhaler more frequently than usual, consult with your doctor, since this is a sign of an uncontrolled asthmatic condition.

Additional Steps to be taken: There are few more things that can help your child avoiding an asthma attack. Such as:

• Keep your child’s room free from cigarette smoke and other air pollutions like dusts or mosquito coils.

• Keep your child away from things they are allergic to, like dust mites, pollen or pet dander.

• Never let your child play outside when it’s cold and dry. If exercising seems to be an asthmatic trigger, talk with your doctor about it.

You may feel feeble if your child is asthmatic, but maintaining a daily treatment diagram and an action plan for asthma attack will help you to figure out what should you do during an attack.

Asthma in Children-Overview, Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment
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