Bronchial Asthma

Bronchial asthma represents a state of hypersensitivity of the respiratory tract to airborne and blood born excitants. The lungs react by an outpouring of fluid and the setting up of an acute non-bacterial inflammatory reaction. This disease is characterized by the increased responsiveness of the trachea and bronchi to various stimuli.

One of the most complex questions is why individuals show susceptibility to definite substances such as: immunologic reactions, infections, drugs intolerance, irritant inhalation, atmospheric change, emotional upset, associated disease or a combination of these factors.

In acute attack there is an increase in oxygen demand due to the increased work of breathing. This factor is called hypoxia.

The treatment usually has threefold purpose for the removal of the factors contributing to bronchospasm:

1. To relax accessory muscles of respiration and decrease the oxygen demand by the body.

2. To facilitate artificial ventilation.

3. To allow time by any means for the therapy to become effective.

The characteristic symptom of asthma is wheezing, which is the particular type of dyspnea resulting from narrowing of the bronchi and bronchioles either by spasm of the smooth muscle. The narrowing increases the resistance of the bronchial tree and the effort required for respiration. The effect is more marked during expiration.

There are two distinct types of asthmatic patients. In one, the onset is in childhood and in the other in middle age. Early onset asthma is allergic and occurs in patients who develop other allergy-related disorders such as eczema or hay fever. There is a strong familial tendency. In the older onset type, there is no allergic cause and the etiology is obscure. Both types may be aggravated by the same factors, namely dust (household dust, hair of cats, dogs, etc.), food (eggs, citrus fruits, fish, milk, etc.), drugs (aspirin, analgin, etc.), mechanical and chemical substances (metal, wood, silicate and cotton dust; vapors of acids and alkali; smoke), physical and meteorological factors (air temperature and humidity variation, fluctuation of barometric pressure, the Earth’s field, etc.), infections in the respiratory tract, allergens of ticks, insects, or animals as well as various nervous and psychological effects. That’s why bronchial asthma has become a real problem in polluted cities.

Bronchial asthma treatment methods are based on the earliest termination of contacts with allergens. If allergen’s nature is known and it relates to home commodities (carpets, flowers, etc.), domestic animals (“cat’s asthma”, allergy to dog’s hair), food (eggs, milk, citrus fruits) or “professional” factors (furriers’ asthma), than elimination of the said contacts allows to completely get rid of bronchial asthma attacks. However, allergy on a pollen of flowers growing in the neighborhood, or allergy on specific substances suspended in the air (gas, smoke, specific odors) appears more frequently. To treat this kind of allergy, moving to another place (moving to another district of the city, another type of building (for instance, from a wood house to a brick house, or vice-versa) or another climate zone is only recommended. Given the fact that ordinary citizens typically have permanent address registration and their jobs are in the vicinity of the place they live in, people subjected to allergy disease can hardly follow this advice. In these cases anti-allergenic drugs are typically ordered.

Since contacts of patients with allergy-initiating sources continue, patients have to continuously search for new anti-allergenic drugs: as a matter of fact, in the course of time people get used to drugs they consume and these drugs don’t help them any longer. As a result, bronchial asthma soon passes into a chronic phase that can’t practically be treated. So, at an early stage of allergy development it’s very important to break up your lifestyle and avoid further contacts with allergens for a month at least. It’s advised to take a vacation and go to a specialized sanatorium where physiotherapeutic treatment, namely, inhalation, electric current treatment or acupuncture is practiced. After passing such a treatment, allergy doesn’t return, even if patients restore contacts with allergens.