Database of diseases - Asthma

Initial COPD symptoms

COPD develops virtually asymptomatic and secretly. Very often we do not realize that everyday cough with expectoration, problems with catching a breath, less and less physical fitness, and even a small breathlessness, are the beginnings of a very serious and more common disease in Poland.



Symptoms of the advanced phase of COPD

1. As the disease develops, there is a feeling of breathlessness and fatigue in activities requiring physical effort.

2. The effort is accompanied by cough, loss of breath, and sometimes wheezing.

3. In the advanced form of COPD, the sufferer suffers from shortness of breath, even with the slightest effort.


Growing shortness of breath

The definition of COPD exposes a health-threatening symptom - a reduction in airflow - causing dyspnea. A frequent cause of breathlessness is also bronchospasm caused by bronchitis or retention of secretions. But remember that the cause of shortness of breath may also be the onset of asthma.


How to distinguish between an attacker's suffocation and an asthma attack?

A characteristic feature of exaggerated dyspnoea is that it occurs almost exclusively during physical exertion. (Sometimes the stimulus may be cold air or increased contact with irritating chemical substances.). Patients also have night bouts of shortness of breath. The state of ophthalmic dyspnea is sometimes called systolic or "spastic" bronchitis. In terms of the severity of dyspnoea may resemble bronchial asthma. In asthma, however, there is reversibility of the contraction and the multiplicity of stimuli that cause the attack, including the highly characteristic phenomenon of sensitization and atopy.


This disease also develops asymptomatically!

Unlike asthma, narrowing the light of the bronchi can develop for many years insidiously, asymptomatically. When the patient notices his problem and reports to the doctor with dyspnea, the disease is usually highly advanced and the patient is usually middle-aged or older. In advanced lung disease, more than half of the breathing reserves may be missing! The word of the part that we do not use in normal breathing; and which we reach for during physical exertion.

AT THE END, we PROPOSE A SIMPLE TEST - KNOW THE STATUS OF YOUR LUNG

Have you smoked or smoked cigarettes and have completed 40 years?

Yes

No

Do you cough in the morning to "cleanse the lungs"?

Yes

No

Do you feel a lack of breath when running to a bus, tram or going up two floors?

Yes

No

Do you often get cold and cough in winter?

Yes

No

The answer "yes" to at least two questions suggests the possibility of a disease - chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) - emphysema. If you answer "yes" twice - report to your doctor and show him the result of the survey. Probably the doctor will direct you to a spirometry test.

ed. Edward Ozga-Michalski, MA

Literature:

1. Proceedings in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adults in basic and specialist healthcare - Current (2004) British recommendations; ed. prof. dr hab. med. Ewa Niżankowska-Mogilnicka, Department of Pulmonology, II Chair of Internal Diseases, Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow; Medycyna Praktyczna 2004/04 (based on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease National clinical guideline on management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adults and adults. National Collaborating Center for Chronic Conditions. Thorax, 2004; 59 (suppl. I): 1-232 -
2. World strategy for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Dr. med. Małgorzata Kołaczkowska Chair and Clinic of Ftztopneumonologia AM in Poznań (Head: Dr. med. Witold Młynarczyk, prof.AM); Developed on the basis of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Reports and WHO as part of the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease - Gold), Therapy No. 5 (137), MAY 2003
3. Obstructive pulmonary disease; Interview with dr hab. n. med. Dorota Górecka from the Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases in Warsaw; Mirosława Błażejowska and Agnieszka Siejca; Medycyna Rodzinna, issue 22 (1/2003)
4. The role of infection in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) Medycyna Rodzinna - issue 14 (3-4 / 2001)
5. Clinical significance of infections in exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease Medycyna Praktyczna 2000/10; she translated the medicine. med. Magdalena Celińska; She consulted dr hab. med. Dorota Górecka.
6. Place of cholinolytics in the treatment of airway obstruction; Dr med. Krzysztof Karwat Chair and Clinic of Internal Diseases, Pneumonology and Allergology of the Medical University in Warsaw; : Therapy No. 2 (133), FEBRUARY 2003
7. New treatment options for inflammatory and obstructive airways diseases - administration of drugs in nebulization; Bow. Maciej Kupczyk, prof. dr hab. med. Piotr Kuna Klinika Pneumonologii i Alergologii AM in Łódź; Therapy NR 4, vol. 1 (119), APRIL 2002
8. Encyclopedias and medical sites