Can Asthma and Allergies Kill An Asthmatic Person?

The word asthma is Greek and means to breathe hard and that is the main symptom of asthma. If you have asthma, the airways in your lungs are almost always sore and inflamed and quick to respond to anything that irritates them.

Asthma is best defined by its four main symptoms:

- Coughing - often the first sign that asthma attack is on the way. You may either have a dry cough or a cough with phlegm, and coughing often happens at night or after exercise.

- Shortness of breath - it is hard to finish one breath before starting another

- Wheezing - the whistling noise made when someone having an attack breathes out. It is caused by sticky fluid, mucus, produced by the reddened and inflamed airways.

- Tightness in the chest - a feeling that you have a vice sound around your chest or that someone is giving you an overenthusiastic bear hug.

Triggers such as droppings of the house dust mite and pets can cause these airways to narrow suddenly. An asthma attach can be frightening because one sufferer described it as a bit like drowning and in extreme cases, asthma can kill.

What is the relationship between the airways and asthma? In an asthma attack, the airways that take air from your nose or mouth to the lungs become constricted, making it hard to breathe.

The problem may be caused in three different ways, the airway walls become swollen, the muscles of the airways go into spasm, and mucus collects and obstructs the airways.

Allergies are very common and one in three people will have an allergy at some time during their life. One in five of us has hay fever and one in every six children has a skin condition, usually eczema.

An allergy is your body overreacting to something that is normally harmless. Most people can walk past freshly cut grass, cuddle up to the family pet and happily munch their way through a bag of peanuts.

A bee sting usually causes no more than a flash of pain and a red lump. For most people drugs, such as antibiotic or local anesthetics, cause no problems. But if you have an allergy, many of these things do and the allergic reaction like an asthma attack can be sudden and violent.

Very rarely, allergies can kill. For a tiny number of people, if they do not get the right medication immediately, a bee sting or a peanut can mean death.