Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the respiratory system that is characterized by attacks of wheezing, constriction in the chest and shortness of breathing. Although the symptoms are the same but type of asthma differs. Some of these are Child onset asthma, adult onset asthma, exercise onset asthma, cough onset asthma, Occupational asthma, nocturnal asthma.
Child onset asthma is induced by genetic reasons and begins early asthma. When the children are exposed to house dust mites, fungi, pollens, resulting in a type of antibody produced that is supposed to engulf and destroy foreign materials. This makes the air passages sensitive to specific materials and exposure leads to asthmatic attacks. Adult onset asthma develops after the person attains 20 years. It affects more women than men and is generally associated with allergies, medicine side effects. Another source of adult onset asthma is exposure to occupations that relate to animal products, plastics, dust, wood or metals.
Other type of asthma is exercise induced asthma which is triggered after strenuous exercise with symptoms of wheezing, shortness of breath. This specific type of asthma is associated with heart problems and poor physical health. Exercise induced asthma occurs after 5 to 20 minutes of exercise. Sports that have strenuous exercise like hockey, marathon can trigger this asthma. Other activities that can trigger this attack are laughing, hyperventilating, crying, coughs.
Occupational asthma happens when the person is allergic to products that work related like contaminated air-smoke, fumes, chemicals, dust. Any of these though is not hazardous but can trigger an attack in a person who is susceptible to these allergens. Nocturnal asthma occurs between midnight and morning 8am.It is triggered by dust, pets and other sinus conditions. These symptoms occur while lying down or in the middle of the night.
Although the symptoms are common in all the asthmas, the reasons differ for each attack from each individual.