Asthma-one of the most common and intolerable respiratory diseases today is increasing at a widespread rate due to pollution, poor dietary choices, sedentary lifestyles, and distress.
Starting from infants, kids, and teenagers, to young individuals, and old-age senior citizens, asthma can affect anyone, irrespective of their age, and gender. Well, if you are thinking asthma is just a breathing problem, and nothing more, then you are highly mistaken.
In fact, the scope of asthma is much wider and extreme. Beyond breathing complications, an asthma attack can also result in the following:
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Chest pain : One of the main symptoms that an asthmatic patient is likely to experience is a sharp pain in the chest. Such pain could be persistent or may come and go from time to time.
- Wheezing: It can be defined as a whistling sound that is observed among asthma patients when they exhale. It mainly arises due to the narrowing of the airways.
- Rapid Heart Rate: One of the common asthma attack symptoms is an increased heart rate. When the condition persists for a long period, it can accompany other serious complications such as high BP, or even stroke.
- Restlessness: A feeling of anxiety, and distress is also seen among patients who experience an asthma attack. Often they start to sweat, and their body starts to turn cold. Sometimes, the patient may even faint.
- Difficult breathing: Last but primary, being unable to breathe properly is yet another difficulty or symptom that a patient with asthma encounters. Mostly exhaling is way more difficult as compared to inhaling during this respiratory concern.
7 Things that can trigger an asthma attack
- Exposure to allergens: People may be allergic to different types of things such as particular fumes, pet dander, dust mites, pet hair, pollen, etc. Coming in contact with such allergens increases your chances of encountering an asthma attack.
- Wrong dietary choices: Consumption of certain ahaar (food) can also trigger asthma. Whenever an asthmatic patient consumes cold, stale, oily, processed, or refined food, they start to experience breathing difficulties. Apart from these, excessive dairy, gluten, and non-vegetarian diets can also contribute to the occurrence of an asthma attack.
- Congested environment: Your surroundings also impact your breathing ability. Working in a congested environment automatically causes breathing problems where an asthma attack can easily arise as there is no proper, or fresh air to breathe.
- Stress, or emotional breakdown: We have also seen patients experiencing asthma attacks while dealing with some sort of emotional breakdown, mental ups-down, or any psychological trauma.
- Alcohol and smoking: One of the major asthma attack causes is alcohol and smoking. These substances make your airways inflamed, and narrow from the inside, causing breathing complications for the patient.
- Pre-existing respiratory conditions: There are likely more chances of experiencing asthma attack complications if you are already experiencing a cold, cough, or some other sort of respiratory infection.
- Excessive medications: Prolonged consumption of steroid-based medicines, or beta-blockers/drugs can affect your overall respiratory system in a number of ways where you may experience frequent asthma episodes.
How worse could the condition be?
Asthma- that respiratory disease that if once developed will not be an easy task to handle. Starting from minor chest pain, and shortness of breath, it could turn into a serious health condition, in a very short span of time.
With the passage of time, your mild asthma will turn into chronic, where you will start to struggle to breathe even in fresh air, or you may become completely inhaler-dependent. In certain cases, even the death of the patients is also possible.
Let’s understand the condition of asthma from this cycle:
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Stage 1. |
Patients often experience just mild shortness of breath, and chest pain occasionally. |
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Stage 2. |
The complications so stated in the first stage start to become regular where the patient experiences frequent episodes of chest pain, trouble breathing, and sleeping difficulty. |
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Stage 3. |
During this stage, the patient starts to use inhalers and take medications in order to reduce the asthma symptoms and complications associated with it. |
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Stage 4. |
At this stage, the untreated asthma becomes worse and chronic. The patient either spends his life with inhaler dependency or sometimes even dies in an emergency. |
How to Handle an Asthma Attack If Inhaler is Not Available
Inhalers may provide you with relief during emergency conditions, but that’s not a permanent solution. Also, there might be circumstances when inhalers may not necessarily be available.
Then your most obvious concern would be “What To Do If Not Inhalers?”
Addressing your query, the experts at Dr. Sharda Ayurveda have shared certain tips and an asthma action plan that you can follow during asthma attacks when the inhaler is not available. These experts suggested tips are as follows:
1. Don’t Panic, Stay Calm: Often we have seen patients panicking whenever they experience an asthma attack. Such an overactive response adds pressure on your respiratory system and makes the muscles in the chest tighten even more, leading to much worse breathing complications.
That’s why it is highly advised to stay calm so that further contraction of your chest muscles can be prevented.
2. Sit upright: Whether you are doing just stop it if you feel that you are experiencing any sort of breathing difficulty. Just sit upright as it will help you breathe better.
The most common mistake that patients make is they start to lie or bend down whenever they encounter an asthma attack, assuming that it will help ease breathing. But that’s completely not advised at all, because such bending or lying down can even constrict your breathing more.
3. Avoid your trigger: Step away from everything that is pushing you towards an asthma attack. Different people may have triggers based on the various types of asthma they are suffering with.
Let’s understand it with an example: Suppose you are asthmatic and doing strenuous exercises for the past hour and it is causing you difficulty breathing. Then it is on high notes advised to stop doing it or perform these exercises with adequate time-gap between.
4. Take long breaths: Take slow and long breaths where you are supposed to inhale the air via your nostrils and exhale it out from your mouth. It will help to slow down the process of hyperventilation (a condition of rapid breathing usually caused by anxiety or panic.)
5. Water drinks/soups: Drinking hot caffeinated, or warm drinks, soups, and even coffee or tea can help during an asthma attack. Such drinks will improve your breathing condition by opening up the blocked respiratory airways.
6. Take steam: This is yet another natural way that can substitute an asthma inhaler. Inhaling steam will improve the functioning of your airways by reducing the inflammation caused by respiratory paths.
You may take steam of normal boiled water, or if you want certain herbs like turmeric, ginger, basil, bay leaves, or mulethi, etc can also be added to the water.
7. Seek medical help: Preventions and precautions may help but they can never take the place of treatment. As we have already mentioned, how bothersome the condition of asthma can be.
That’s why we always recommend that if you feel that your asthma is getting worse, then don’t delay to consult a doctor or pulmonologist.
Conclusion:
Remember, inhalers are meant to help you, the mere dependence on them can never be a wise option. Keep your inhaler handy but use it only during the condition of an emergency.
For mild breathing problems, opt for natural ways, and remedies so that your problems can be eased naturally. Still, if you need any kind of assistance regarding asthma management or its Ayurvedic treatment, then we are just one call away.
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