Most have heard of it and many people know somebody affected by it. Work related asthma claims are common but probably few really know much about it? For most of us, averaging 12 breaths per minute during work and leisure, tends to occur without problem or thought. However, for asthmatics, particularly with severe or poorly controlled disease, breathing is a top priority consideration and the effort it takes greatly limits the energy available to live and love life.

Modern life may contribute to the growing number of sufferers with work related asthma claims increasing but asthma is not new. Hippocrates named it after the Greek for ‘panting’ around 450 BC. Precise causes and effects aren’t fully known but asthma ranges from a relatively mild dry cough to severe breathlessness causing several hundred deaths each year.

The body requires oxygen. Inhaled air enters the lungs via a series of branching, narrowing tubes (the bronchial tree), which terminate in tiny air sacs. The thin walls of these sacs (alveoli) enable oxygen to diffuse from lung to blood in exchange for carbon dioxide produced by a range of complex chemical processes which enable thought, movement, temperature control, digestion, infection control and much else.

Asthma is an oversensitive response to one or more genetic, allergy or environmentally based ‘trigger’ factors causing soreness and inflaming the walls of the bronchial tubes. The result is contraction of the muscle within the walls, constricting the tubes. During an asthma ‘attack’ this is particularly noticeable and whilst possible to breathe in, increased resistance makes breathing out far harder. Many complain of feeling ‘tight-chested’ and the overall inability to breathe properly naturally gives rise to panic.

Modern treatments have enabled control of even severe asthma, restoring active and happy lives. Drugs relieve soreness and inflammation (inhaled steroids) and, particularly during an ‘attack’, dilate the constricting bronchial tubes, avoiding the worst possibilities of unexpectedly encountering something triggering.

Asthma is common even amongst athletes. It is a serious disease and needs respect given to its proper treatment. For the luckily unaffected, not only should they breathe a sigh of relief but also be considerate towards those less fortunate.  In the North West region visit Ead solicitors in Liverpool who specialise in these particular cases.