The hot summer days are over and the kids can finally go to the park to have some fun. However, Qiqi’s mother was especially nervous because once the season came, Qiqi started to sneeze and runny nose in the morning, and when he didn’t pay attention, he had asthma, coughing incessantly and hearing “sibilant” sounds in his throat. The coughing and shortness of breath got worse at night, and several times she couldn’t even lie down to sleep, so her mother had to take Qiqi to the hospital to get fluids. Qiqi’s father also has asthma, not properly treated, and now even climbing the stairs is shortness of breath, Qiqi’s mother is really anxious.
5-year-old Dudu has been coughing since the beginning of autumn and has been doing so for almost two months. Every morning when she gets up and every night when she goes to sleep, she coughs for a while, and during the day when she is active. She went to several hospitals and took a lot of anti-inflammatory drugs and cough syrup, but she didn’t get better. Once I was referred by a friend and went to a respiratory specialist. He patiently inquired about the situation and gave Dudu a pulmonary function and allergen test, and when the test results came out, he prescribed asthma medication for Dudu. The mother wondered, “Is it asthma? She had never wheezed before.
Both children were diagnosed with asthma. What kind of disease is bronchial asthma? How do you get asthma? How should asthma be treated? What should parents be aware of?
Definition of asthma
Asthma is a chronic allergic inflammatory disease of the airways. Its airways are abnormally hyper-reactive to a variety of atopic or non-atopic stimuli. Typical asthma symptoms – recurrent episodes of wheezing, dyspnea, chest tightness, or coughing – may be seen clinically, often occurring at night and/or early in the morning, exacerbated, often with widespread variable reversible airflow limitation, and most children can be treated or resolve on their own. Prolonged attacks can lead to airway smooth muscle hyperplasia and airway narrowing, resulting in irreversible airway obstruction.
What are the causes of asthma?
The causes of asthma are complex and include intrinsic genetic factors and extrinsic environmental factors. Genetic factors refer to the atopic qualities that asthmatics are born with, which can make their airways highly reactive to various allergens. In addition, environmental factors such as inhalant allergens, food allergens, irritant gases, chemicals, respiratory infections, cold air, exercise, and mental factors are also important causes of asthma attacks. The formation of chronic inflammation of the airways in asthma is the result of a combination of factors.
Is asthma hereditary?
Patients with atopic qualities have a much higher chance of developing various allergic diseases (including skin allergy, allergic rhinitis, allergic asthma, etc.) in their first-degree relatives than in relatives of people without atopic qualities. It is not unusual for several people within a family to have asthma, so there is a certain genetic predisposition to asthma. If one parent has asthma, the chances of the child developing asthma are high. If both parents have asthma, the chances of the children getting asthma are even higher. The aforementioned Qiqi and his father both have asthma. As for the severity of asthma, children do not necessarily have the same level of asthma as their parents, depending on how early they are treated. However, asthma is inherited in a complex, polygenic manner, and not all people with atopic qualities will develop asthma.
Why are asthma attacks more common in spring and fall and during sudden weather changes?
During spring and autumn and sudden changes in climate, the rate of emergency room visits for children with asthma increases significantly, mainly due to the following factors: (1) dust mites and fungi are important allergens for asthma attacks. Pollen is also an important allergen for asthma attacks. Most plants have pollen in spring and autumn, so asthma allergies to pollen are prone to attacks in spring and autumn. Qiqi has had several asthma attacks after going to the park with her father and mother. The sudden change in temperature, especially the sudden drop in temperature, can be used as a stimulus to trigger asthma attacks.
”Asthma that “doesn’t wheeze
There is a type of asthma that “doesn’t wheeze”, medically known as cough variant asthma. Cough variant asthma is a specific type of asthma with chronic cough as the main or only symptom. It is characterized by a chronic, persistent dry cough, often triggered by exercise, cold air inhalation, or upper respiratory tract infection, and occurs mostly at night or in the early morning. Most patients have positive allergen tests and positive pulmonary function bronchial excitation tests, and most have a personal history of allergy or a family history of allergy. It is often misdiagnosed clinically as bronchiectasis and is ineffective with general antibiotics and cough suppressants, while treatment with bronchodilators or glucocorticoids can result in significant improvement of the cough. About 1/3-1/2 of cough variant asthma will develop into typical asthma. This is the case with the aforementioned Tootoo. Tootoo’s skin is also often prone to small red rashes, and Tootoo’s mother’s skin is often prone to allergies.
Can pediatric asthma be cured without a cure?
Some parents think that pediatric asthma will grow into adulthood and it doesn’t matter if it is treated or not. Many parents who had asthma when they were children and have asthma remission as adults think that pediatric asthma does not need to be treated, so many children miss out on a favorable time for treatment. Although it is true that some children with asthma can be cured without treatment, in recent years most doctors still believe that children with asthma should be treated actively and reasonably, mainly because the immune system of children is not fully developed and is plastic. The main reason is that the immune system of children is not fully developed and is plastic. As they get older and their immune system develops, this plasticity becomes less and less, and the chance of cure becomes less and less. Therefore, if your child has asthma, do not hesitate to treat it as early as possible and try to cure it before adolescence. Even if the disease is not cured by adolescence, it will be greatly improved by active treatment in childhood.
Glucocorticoid inhalation therapy is the first line of treatment for asthma
Children with asthma need inhaled glucocorticosteroids for both acute and remission periods. Many parents do not understand this and are very concerned about the side effects of long-term medication. The chronic inflammation of the airways in children with asthma persists during both exacerbations and remissions, so asthma requires long-term treatment and management. This chronic airway inflammation differs markedly from bacterial inflammation and therefore does not require long-term antibiotic treatment, but rather long-term treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs such as glucocorticoids by inhalation. The most effective anti-inflammatory drug available is glucocorticoid, which blocks all aspects of the inflammatory response in asthma and provides an anti-inflammatory effect. Glucocorticosteroids have a large systemic adverse effect, but local inhaled hormones can avoid the systemic adverse effect, so parents should not be too nervous.
What should parents do if their child has asthma?
After a child is diagnosed with asthma, what should parents do in addition to seeking help from doctors and taking medication regularly?
First of all, parents should provide their children with asthma with planned and systematic cold-tolerance exercises from summer to increase the body’s ability to adapt to cold. The specific measures include planned less clothing, appropriate exposure to cold water, daily morning jogging, taking your child swimming, etc. The process should be gradual, so as not to cause excessive cold. Children with asthma who have been exercised for cold tolerance are not only less afraid of the cold in winter, but also have fewer asthma attacks. In fact, for most children with asthma, their bodies are not afraid of the cold. The key is to inhale air that is too cold, too dry or too wet, which can easily irritate the airways and trigger asthma, so it is effective to wear a mask to ease the inhalation of air during the season when there is a large change in temperature.
The next step is to create a living environment suitable for children with asthma. Keep the room clean, ventilated and dry, and smoking is strictly prohibited. Bedding should be made of cotton in quantity, not bedding made of fur, silk, cotton or down. Do not keep cats, dogs, rabbits, pigeons, etc. in the house. Parents should not use strongly scented cosmetics, and should not apply cosmetics to their children. Buy toys for children, should choose wood, cloth, metal made of good, do not buy toys made of fur or thick velvet. In addition, in the purchase of toys to smell any special smell, to the tasteless is better. Fish, shrimp, crab, onions, garlic, leeks and too acidic and too spicy food to eat less. If you find that your child has an asthma attack after eating a certain kind of food, you must stop eating that kind of food.
Finally, it is important to develop good habits in children with asthma. Eat, sleep, and urinate and defecate regularly. Do not eat full meals and do not eat foods that are too salty or irritating during the day. Allow your child to have a certain amount of outdoor activity every day, the time and content of the activity can be flexible according to the age and the smoothness of breathing. Do not overly restrict your child’s physical activity for fear of an asthma attack. Of course, if your child has an asthma attack, rest is important. If your child’s asthma attack is seasonal, carefully observe what local flowers and trees are in bloom during the onset season and reduce outdoor activities then.
Asthma is not a scary condition. With proper medication and care, children with asthma can live like normal children. Parents of children with asthma should have confidence in their children, and at the same time actively take effective measures under the guidance of doctors, strengthen communication and contact with doctors, and make regular follow-up visits to keep their children away from asthma.