There is a multiplicity of reasons why someone might experience breathing difficulties: anxiety, allergic reaction, common cold, stress, heart attack, or pulmonary disorder. However, one of the worst breathing difficulties of all can be asthma. Whether someone suffers from childhood or adult asthma, the onset of an asthma attack and the attendant breathing difficulties that come with it can be one of the scariest feelings in the world.
The breathing difficulties of asthma are brought about when airways tighten, inflame, or fill with mucus. Sufferers will experience coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, and chest tightness, pain, or pressure.
Sometimes, sufferers experience the same exact symptoms with each attack. Others have varying symptoms from one attack to another. It is even possible to have a very mild attack and then an extremely severe attack the next time. Asthma can be incredibly unpredictable.
Some people do not have extreme attacks very often, but suffer from asthma symptoms every day. Others suffer serious breathing difficulties only when they exercise or when they are fighting off some other form of infection.
Most sufferers of asthma have learned to recognize the warning signs of an impending attack. When a sufferer experiences these warnings, they can often take measures to prevent an all out attack or to keep the attack from getting worse. Such symptoms or signs include a frequent cough, especially when in bed, mild breathing difficulties, fatigue, especially when exercising, wheezing after exercise, decrease in lung function, cold symptoms, or sleeplessness.
Many medical professionals will recommend that asthma sufferers use an inhaler or take some other form of medication at the first sign of breathing difficulties. Unfortunately, this means that asthma patients are constantly tethered to their medication in one way or another. Many asthmatics live in constant fear of having an onset when they do not have their inhaler or their medication available.
In addition, recent studies have questioned the effectiveness of asthma medications, especially in children. Though more research is necessary to determine the extent to which it is the medications themselves are ineffective and how much of the unsuccessfulness is due to poor patient education or improper use of inhalers or medicines, patients should understand that inhalers or pills are not the panacea for asthma sufferers that many doctors seem to claim.
In fact, many who suffer from the breathing difficulties associated with asthma have found improved relief when relying not so much on inhalers or pills, but on breathing techniques, exercises, and lifestyle changes that help them to manage their asthma and feel more in control of their lives.
When you learn to manage breathing difficulties, you improve your total health. The Buteyko Center http://www.breathingcenter.com offers a free breathing test online and a free Buteyko Health Evaluation report with our recommendations. The test will help you determine whether you hyperventilate or not, and if so to what degree, and how that may be affecting the quality of your sleep, as well as recommendations for improvement.
