Asthma, hard to spell and sometimes even harder to live with. In the United States alone more than 22 million people live with the chronic respiratory ailment, of whom over 6 million are children.

There is not cure for asthma and it almost always stays with a person for life, although they may experience periods when they are virtually symptom free. Asthma sufferers tend to have inflamed airway passages and the symptoms of their condition – wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath and coughing. – usually appear when those inflamed airways are exposed to an irritant when breathed in.

When the very sensitive airway passages of an asthma sufferer are irritated the passages tighten, making it hard to breathe properly. If the attack continues the airways can narrow even further and excessive mucus can build up along their walls, making it even harder for the sufferer to get enough air into their lungs.

For much of the time minor sufferers experience only mild forms of these symptoms, and they can be controlled with the regular use of one of the many asthma medications that have become available over the  last several decades.

If the symptoms do not abate quickly though, the sufferer is considered to be having a full blown asthma attack. For occasions such as these most asthma patients carry a “rescue inhaler” with them at all times, which is designed to deliver a potent dose of medication to calm the attack.

There are occasions when an attack is so severe that the only course of action to be taken is to seek emergency medical treatment, as it is quite possible for a serious asthma attack to result in a sufferer’s death.

Why some people develop asthma while others do not is something that medical researchers have still yet to determine. They do believe however that a combination of certain risk factors – genetics and outside environmental issues – when combined trigger the disease in certain individuals.

One current theory held by many medical professionals and researchers who work with asthma patients is that an overall decline in infections in early childhood in the modern Western world may be part of the reason why asthma rates in young children are on the increase.

The theory surmises that since children are not now exposed to the number of infections their parents and grandparents were and that that fact affects the overall development of a young immune system and may make them more susceptible to atopy and asthma. If they have close family members who have also been diagnosed with the disease those who subscribe to this theory, commonly known as the “Hygiene Hypothesis”, feel that the risk for developing asthma may be doubled or even tripled.