Asthma is of mainly of following kinds :
INTRINSIC ASTHMA
This type of asthma develops due to some pre-existing disease, like disease of the being due to certain part infection or existing disease like bronchitis. Such type of patients do not benefit from or respond to anti-allergic treatment and, thus, not easy to manage and control due to non-response factor. This variety occurs mostly in advance age.
EXTRINSIC ASTHMA
Extrinsic asthma usually and commonly occurs in earlier part of one’s life and generally responds to anti-allergic medication and treatment. The underlying cause can be attributed to exposure to allergic agents like certain fungi, house dust, pollens etc. The patient has an inherited tendency when he gets exposed to the said allergens. Recurring bouts of rhinites (sneezing) and eczema could also be the pre-disposing and precipitatory cause to trigger an attack of asthma.
EXERCISE INDUCED ASTHMA
This type of asthma commonly occurs to those who take to physical exercise in the cold weather but, then, all persons may be either partially or not, at all, affected or some may be having serious manifestations.
Problems, relating to asthma, can be easily managed in young adults, but extremely difficult to manage in case of the elderly and small children.
POTENTIAL ASTHMATIC PATIENTS
Following situations and type of persons could be termed as potential customers to imbibe asthma:
□ Those who generally suffer from some sort of tftroat affection and there is recurrence of symptoms relating thereto.
□ Those having a family history of asthma.
□ Persons who often suffer from bouts of sneezing, especially at the change of season.
□ Persons experiencing coughing at the change of season.
□ Those living in polluted environments and whose houses are dark, damp, filthy, where standard of personal hygiene is appallingly poor and where sun rays cannot enter.
□ Persons working in cloth mills, chemical factories, flour mills, paint and varnish factories, coal miners, labourers who work in stone quarries.
□ Persons who easily get breathless even after a light exercise or due to change of season.
□ Those who are sensitive to cold winds and develop breathing problem.
□ Persons whose nose often remains blocked and, thus, have difficulty in breathing through nose.
There could be other situations or causes which may trigger an attack of asthma.
It is generally held that childhood eczema or development of sneezing in the grown up stage may manifest in the form of asthma. A child may inherit allergy but not a specific manifestation of allergy, that is allergy factor may be inherited but not the type or kind of allergy from which either parent suffers. Asthma has been observed to run from one generation to another.
CAUSES OF ALLERGY
□ House Dust and Mites
□ Plant pollens
□ Fungi
□ Insects/Insect bites
□ Food articles
FACTORS CAUSING ASTHMA
□ Animals
□ Changing weather conditions
□ Chemicals, Paints, Insecticides, Pesticides, Fertilizers (Industrial Pollution)
□ Smoke and fly-ash
□ Heredity
Some other precipitatory factors may be sudden, coincidental or situation-based or some may be even specific to a person only in a given situation but disappear as soon as the agonizing situation becomes non-existent.