Updated April 03, 2015.

Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.

Could you define asthma if your doctor or someone who heard you wheezing asked? I will sometimes ask my patients or their parents “what is asthma?”

When I do this I get a lot of interesting answers- some correct and some not. An important part of your asthma control is knowing as much as you can about asthma. While knowledge in and of itself is not sufficient (you need to have confidence that you can and learn how to take action based on your knowledge), but it is an essential component.

Define Asthma

By far the most common answer I get when I ask patients to define asthma is wheezing. This make sense as it is the most readily identifiable asthma symptom. Patients are less likely to identify other common symptoms such as:

• Chest tightness
• Cough
• Shortness of breath

Some people just know that asthma causes trouble breathing. Asthma is a chronic condition affecting the lungs where the airways become swollen and narrowed leading to the previously mentioned symptoms. Additionally, asthma tends to produce a lot of thick mucus. These changes make it harder to move air in and out of your lungs causing difficulty breathing and other asthma symptoms.

Finally, some patients tell me asthma is a problem that you have as a child and eventually outgrow it. This tends to cause a false sense of security if patients asthma is really well controlled for a period of time. If you become complacent and stop your medication, asthma symptoms can return rather significantly.

In a number of studies children’s asthma tend to improve over time, but this is not always the case.

Asthma is a chronic disease. It is still there even if you are your child are not currently having symptoms. You will always have asthma even though one day you might not even know its there, and on other days you are coughing and wheezing.

Defining Asthma As a Problem

When I ask other patients to define asthma their answer approaches more of the public health issues related to asthma. I tend to hear more things like:

• “Asthma is growing in the U.S.”- This is true with about 1–12 people in the U.S. having asthma today compared to 1 in 14 in 2009. Asthma growth seemed to grow the most in African American children with a nearly 50% increase.
• “Asthma is expensive.” In addition to national health expenditures which have grown (an increase of 1.5 billion dollars from 2002 to 2007), the changes away from CFC inhalers have also raised the cost to individual patients, especially if you do not have prescription coverage. Forty percent of people without insurance state they cannot afford their asthma medication while eleven percent of people with insurance cannot afford it. Additionally, many parents or working adults miss work due to an asthma related illness– creating a further economic hardship.
• “Asthma is getting worse.” Both the number of exacerbations experienced by patients with asthma as well as asthma deaths seem to be increasing. More people with asthma have an asthma attack in a given year than asthma patients not having an attack.

No Matter How You Define Asthma

Asthma remains problematic no matter what your definition. Better education is needed so that you can do everything you can to prevent asthma from impacting you and society so greatly. Creating a personal action plan with your doctor is one action step you can take to get better asthma control.

Sources

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Asthma in the US. Accessed on February 25, 2014.
2. American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Asthma Statistics. Accessed on February 25, 2014.