Diagnosing asthma can at times be quite difficult as the symptoms associated with it are not specific or unique. As a matter of fact, the symptoms manifested resemble other types of diseases such as emphysema, bronchitis, and some lower respiratory infections.
It will take some time and patience for anyone to make a conclusive diagnosis of asthma. To facilitate the process, you may need to make some effort to keep a record of all the symptoms manifested by you or your loved ones prior to a diagnosis by your doctors. During the diagnosis, you can provide your records to your your doctor to help him save some time on the diagnosis.
Your doctor will be especially concerned about any coughing or wheezing episodes. If you find yourself short of breath in certain situations or at specific times such as during particular seasons of the year, you should make a note of it. Likewise, make a note of your reactions to irritants such as strong scents, smoke, or other chemical fumes? Ask yourself the following questions but do remember to keep a record on them – Do the reactions come on suddenly? And how often? Do you experience colds that seem to settle in the chest area? Do they seem to linger too long? What medicines do you take to deal with them and how do you react to the medicines?
Additionally, you will also need to make some research on your family medical history. The following questions will help you in your gathering of information on your family medical background – Does anyone close to you have trouble with allergies such as hay fever? Or more clearly, has anyone else been diagnosed with asthma?
Your advice on the above will help the doctor to narrow his focus on what may be the cause. As with any disease, the sooner a diagnosis is made the sooner treatment can begin.
Beside recommending certain blood tests and chest x-rays, your doctor will more than likely use a device called a spirometer to check how well your lungs are functioning. With this test, you are required to breathe into the tube after taking a deep breath. This test will measure how much air you exhale and how fast you are able to do it. If your airways are now inflamed, irritated and narrowed or if the muscles around the airways have tightened the air amount and speed will more likely to be lower than average.
Other tests will be carried during the diagnosis process. These include the allergy tests to find out what brings about an immune reaction from your body, exercise tests to monitor your breathing response, and electocardiograms to eliminate any possibility of heart disease.
In diagnosing asthma, your doctor will normally categorize asthma into one of the four basic levels of severity. These include a mild form that manifests itself once or twice a week, at night – once or twice a month, and in between there are no obvious symptoms and your breathing is normal. Next is a mild persistent level that is not more than perhaps once a day and your physical activity is becoming affected when the attacks come on. This is followed by moderate persistent asthma that is manifested by several symptoms every day and an overall increase in night time symptoms. The extreme on the scale is the severe persistent asthma which lives up to it’s description with an ongoing set of symptoms that persist throughout the day and night and your activity is most likely to be very limited.