Strong Odors and Sprays

While some odors may smell pleasant, you may find that strong odors and sprays, even ones that smell nice, are the cause of your asthma symptoms. These days, you can find more and more products that are available in fragrance-free versions.

- Leave your home while it is being painted. Return to your house once the paint has dried.

- Avoid perfume and perfumed products, including talcum powder and hairspray. Opt for fragrance-free products.

- Do not use room deodorizers.

- Use fragrance-free household cleaning products.

- Use a fan or open windows in the kitchen to reduce cooking odors.

- Avoid exposure to air pollution by remaining inside on days when pollution is high.

Medication and Breast-Feeding- A Special Note

Many women with asthma prefer to breast-feed their babies. You can do this safely. It's true that nearly all medications enter breast milk, but the amount of medicine usually is low. It's rare that a baby is affected. The American Academy of Pediatrics has reported that a range of asthma drugs are safe for mothers of nursing infants, including terbutaline, a quick reliever, and prednisone, a long-term controller. One drug, theophylline, may cause vomiting or shakiness in sensitive newborns. As with drugs during pregnancy, it's a good idea to ask your doctor which asthma medications have a history of safe use during breast-feeding.

Cleaning Your Nebulizer Daily

It's very important to clean your nebulizer every day. If bacteria build up in your nebulizer, you can inhale it and get an infection. Keeping your nebulizer clean will also make it last longer. Ask your health care provider exactly how to clean the equipment. In general, you should clean your nebulizer every time you use it by doing the following:

1. Rinse the mask or mouthpiece and T-shaped part in warm water, sterile or distilled water is best, for about 30 seconds. (Do not wash the tubing.)

2. Put the pieces on a towel to air dry.

3. Put the mask or mouthpiece and T-shaped part, cup, and tubing back together. Connect the tubing to the compressed air machine, turn on the machine, and let it run for 10 to 20 seconds.
This dries out the inside of the nebulizer.

4. Take the tubing off the compressed air machine. Store the nebulizer in a sealed plastic bag.

5. Cover the compressed air machine.

A note about over-the-counter asthma medicine

Most asthma medications are only available with your doctor's prescription. A few inhaled quick-reliever medications, however, are sold over-the-counter at drugstores. These general medications are advertised to treat asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and other lung disease. Don't use them. As you've learned, everyone's asthma is different. Together, you and your doctor can decide which, and how much, medication is right for you. Simply puffing on an over-the-counter inhaler whenever you feel short of breath will not improve your asthma. And it may even make your symptoms worse.

Food Allergens

Most allergens that induce asthma symptoms are ones that you breathe in. Food is a less common cause. But if you experience asthma symptoms after eating processed potatoes, shrimp, or dried fruit or when drinking beer or wine, you may be sensitive to the sulfites present in these foods, although sulfite allergy is a rare asthma trigger. Sulfites are used to preserve foods and beverages. If your asthma seems to be triggered by sulfites, avoid food and beverage products that contain these preservatives, and read ingredient labels before eating processed foods.

Asthma Imitators

A long list of other conditions can imitate asthma. The most important of these is chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD), sometimes called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). COLD is most often the result of smoking. It sometimes causes changes in the lung that might lead an inexperienced observer to think of asthma, but it does not respond to most of the measures used to treat asthma. Most people who are seen in public using a nasal tube and an oxygen tank are in the end stage of COPD, the result of smoking.

Heart failure can also imitate asthma, bit usually occurs in people 60 or older and in patients who have other signs and symptoms of cardiac failure. In heart failure, the heart is unable to push out of the lungs as much blood as the body requires in its circulation. Backed-up blood then fills the lung, displacing air and causing wheezing. One of the complications of COLD is lung fibrosis (scarring), which thickens lung tissue, making passage of blood more difficult. Also in the older age group, blood clots in the lung (pulmonary embolism) may be confused with asthma, but a chest X ray will show tie difference. Finally, certain anatomic changes along the path air takes from nose to lungs may mimic asthma, particularly tumors. These, too, can be sorted out by various medical procedures, such as electrocardiograms and X-ray modalities.

Cystic fibrosis is a metabolic disease that is passed in the genes to some members of certain families. It is often confused with asthma, but is a completely different disease. Some of the treatments for asthma are helpful to patients with cystic fibrosis, but none are curative.

The Nervous Connection

Besides inflammation, another path leads to tightening of the bronchial muscles. A network of nerves (autonomic nervous system) exists throughout our bodies to regulate bodily functions on a moment-to-moment basis. This autonomic network is independent of our thought processes in that we have no control over it at all.

The autonomic nervous system serves all parts of the body. Controlling the heart and blood vessels, it adjusts blood pressure and pulse rate. In the digestive tract it controls movement of food and production of enzymes needed for digestion. It coordinates muscle movements and controls our balance. There is no bodily function that does not involve the autonomic nervous system.

In the lungs, the autonomic network has two types of connections. There are nerves that cause the bronchial muscles to contract (parasympathetic nerves) and others that cause them to relax (sympathetic nerves). These networks also regulate secretions of mucus in the respiratory tract. The nerve fibers that contract the bronchi also increase secretions of the bronchial mucous membranes. The fibers that relax the bronchial muscles tend to decrease secretions. Activity of the parasympathetic nerves is one immediate cause of tightening of the bronchial muscle-tubes.

Autonomic nerves, both sympathetic and parasympathetic, connect the sinuses and the lungs. As a result, blockage of outflow from the nose or sinuses may cause tightening of the bronchial muscles, one mechanism by which infection of the sinuses can cause bronchospasm and bronchial asthma. There are, however, many other pathways that lead to bronchospasm.