Frequently Asked Questions

Asthma is a lung condition in which the airways become inflamed and narrowed, due to environmental triggers. These triggers vary per individual. This causes respiratory symptoms like wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, or shortness of breath. Symptoms may vary from day to day and throughout a lifetime. They often become dangerous. Asthma treatment can include inhaled medications, injection, or trigger avoidance strategies.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is also known as COPD. It is a lung condition arising from persistent airflow impairment in the small airways and causes difficulty breathing. It usually results from long-term exposure to inhaled irritants such as smoking. COPD can also arise from nonsmoking exposures over time or even untreated asthma over a lifetime. COPD includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis . Treatment can include inhaled medications or oral medications for severe cases. Early diagnosis and treatment can slow progression and improve quality of life

Asthma is generally treated by pediatricians, internal medicine physicians, allergist, or pulmonologist.

Symptoms are generally respiratory in nature but can vary from person to person. Coughing, shortness of breath or wheezing are all potential symptoms. There are also asthma and COPD “mimics” which can look like asthma or COPD, but are from another condition all together. A specialist can help to differentiate the two and pulmonologist are trained to recognize many of the other lung disease which can mimic asthma or COPD.

Various lung conditions can mimic asthma. Examples include structure airway diseases, laryngeal disease, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, interstitial lung disease, lung masses, autoimmune diseases, connective disease diseases, or eosinophilic lung disease can have similar symptoms. It’s important that your asthma be confirmed with testing to guard against misdiagnosis.

Many conditions can mimic COPD. Cardiac disease, lung masses, genetic disorders, interstitial lung disease, neuromuscular disease, blood disorders, metabolic disease, or diaphragmatic diseases can all resemble COPD. It’s important to have spirometry testing and a specialist confirm your diagnosis.

Asthma and COPD have many commonalities and share many symptoms. In fact, untreated asthma over a long period of time can produced long term lung destruction that will mimic COPD. Additionally, many patients with COPD have lung sensativities to allergen identical to asthma. The term “overlap” syndrome is used to describe an condition in which both syndromes are present simultaneously. The two conditions also share many common testing and treatments.

Yes! Many patients with asthma have the same environmental sensitivities in other parts of their body like eyes, nose, and throat. Treating all sensitivities is very often useful.

Asthma treatment varies by individual. Inhaled medications are a very common treatment. Some patients require immunotherapy (injections) to help desensitize them from their triggers if certain triggers can be identified. Other need “biologics” which are injects specifically designed to decrease the type of inflammation which is causing their asthma.

Yes! Some patients with asthma don’t have wheezing symptoms, but just manifest coughing. However, there are many other conditions that can cause coughing and sometimes structured testing is necessary to confirm the cause.

Yes and no. Many times, asthma is a result of lung sensitivity to environmental exposures. Asthma prevalence and symptom burden increase with air pollution but can also be triggered by natural pollens or environmental antigens found in nature.

The causes of COPD varies, but long-term exposures to inhaled irritants are a frequent cause. Smoking is a very common irritant exposure that over a lifetime can produce COPD. However, nonsmoking irritant exposures can also cause COPD and a good portion of COPD patients have never smoked. The length of exposure and sensitivity to the irritant can vary tremendously from individual to individual.

COPD, unlike asthma, is a ‘fixed’ obstruction. Meaning that the changes of the lung that causes COPD are not reversible and result from long term exposures. However, avoiding irritants, promoting lung health, and minimizing complicating conditions have success at minimizing symptoms if COPD is detected early enough.