Your Asthma Diagnosis Ensures Accurate Treatment

Although common asthma symptoms like wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath and chest tightness would make most people come up with their own asthma diagnosis, some doctors would say “not so fast.” Sometimes your physician needs to collect further information about your medical background, your family history and the extent of your symptoms before coming delivering an asthma diagnosis. Even with that information, your doctor may still decide a breathing test or lung function test is necessary to accurately give an asthma diagnosis.

When you meet with your doctor, tell her whether you’re experiencing bouts of chest tightness, shortness of breath, coughing, or have symptoms triggered when you exercise, are stressed or are exposed to allergens like pollen. She will ask you if you have allergies or if your family has a history of allergies or asthma to provide you with an informed asthma diagnosis. Also, your upper respiratory tract will be examined, and your doctor may look inside your nose to look for signs of inflammation, and an increase in mucus or nasal polyps. Plus, she will use a stethoscope to listen to your lungs for any signs of wheezing or high-pitched whistling sounds when you breathe out. This will indicate your airways are obstructed.

In order for your doctor to come up with an accurate asthma diagnosis it is important for her to conduct various lung function tests such as spirometry where you take deep breaths and powerfully exhale into a tube that measures how well you breathe; or the challenge test where your doctor has you breathe in triggers that may bring on an asthma attack. There are other conditions that could be affecting you which will eliminate the possibility of an asthma diagnosis, and those include:

Other lung diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Airway tumors
Bronchitis
Pneumonia
Pulmonary embolism, which is a blood clot in the lung
Congestive heart failure
More

Consult your physician before giving yourself an asthma diagnosis. Although you may be experiencing the same symptoms, you may have another ailment that requires different treatments and medications.