- As the chest labors to bring enough air into the lungs, breathing often becomes shallow.
- Lacking enough oxygen, the skin becomes bluish.
- The flesh around the ribs of the chest appears to be sucked in.
- The patient may begin to lose consciousness.
Asthma often progresses very slowly, but it may sometimes develop to a fatal or near-fatal attack within a few minutes. It is very difficult to predict when an attack will become very serious.
Exercise-Induced Asthma
Exercise-induced asthma (EIA) is a limited form of asthma in which exercise triggers coughing, wheezing, or shortness of breath. This condition generally occurs in children and young adults, most often during intense exercise in cold dry air. Symptoms are generally most intense about 10 minutes after exercising and then gradually resolve.
EIA is triggered only by exercise and is distinct from ordinary allergic asthma in that it does not produce a long duration of airway activity, as allergic asthma does. (However, some people have both forms of asthma.) People who have only EIA do not need long-term maintenance therapy.
Nocturnal Asthma
Asthma occurs primarily at night (nocturnal asthma) in as many as 75% of patients with asthma. Attacks often occur between 2 and 4 a.m. Nighttime attacks may indicate poor asthma control.
Review Date: 05/03/2011
Reviewed By: Harvey Simon, MD, Editor-in-Chief, Associate Professor of Medicine,
Harvard Medical School; Physician, Massachusetts General Hospital.
Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M.,
Inc.
A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org)
