All About Asthma Guidebook: A Pulmonologist Explains Asthma

by Nicholas DiFilippo

Knowledge is intellectual power. Medical care and approach to lung diseases are anchored in knowledge, questioning and understanding.

Attention and vigilance are required to be sure that, at the first sign of a worsening of the disease, appropriate action is to be taken. The further this disease has progressed during a flare-up the more difficult it is to control. One cannot wait for the disease to continue to worsen before taking appropriate action. Consequently, although patients with asthma should be under the care of a physician, knowledge of the disease by asthma patients is essential. There is no substitute for knowledge. Remember your doctor visits are very important, but these visits are intermittent. Asthma is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week, year-round disease with potential flare-ups during any of these periods.

This prime action "immediate medical attn." runs right into a basic health rule of my mother's " Never go to the doctors until you are in extremis. If you wait long enough it might get better. It was probably all in your head anyway."

was not until the middle of the last century that this disease became classified as a pulmonary disease and not a psychiatric illness.

Oh fatal words for me.

After wrestling with the definition, Dr. Gross finally came to the conclusion that asthma is like love; while we all know what love is, no one really trusts anyone else's definition.

the various manifestations of asthma are not elusive.

Asthma can be acquired by almost everyone.

Precipitation of acute bronchospasm represents a flare-up of the disease, a presentation of an acute asthma attack. Between attacks, there may be no evidence of the disease.

Asthma is usually a lifelong disease with periods of exacerbation and with periods of normalcy, hence the chronicity along with the waxing and waning.