Asthma and City Life: Live Healthy Life Even with Asthma | KDAH Blog

Asthma is a disease that makes it difficult for your lungs to get air.
Shortness of breath, cough and wheezing are all symptoms of asthma. Your chest feels tight and your throat goes dry, you gasp for breath and are unable to get enough air to the lungs.

Why is asthma worst in cities?

The urban air pollution, as well as certain chemicals released in the environment, make the residents of bigger cities more prone to asthma. Here are a few urban factors that cause asthma:

• Automobile exhaust.
• Tobacco smoke.
• Restaurant food odours.
• Cockroaches and rats.

Carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, sulphur, and hydrocarbons all contribute to inner-city pollution and make asthma harder to manage for kids and adults.

Asthma and urban cities:

Here are some tips from the experts on better living with asthma in the city:

• If you have allergies to cockroaches or rodents, get pest control done in your house.
• If you have allergies to dust mites, make sure to have protective covers on all mattresses, box springs, and pillows. Removing carpets from bedrooms also makes a big difference,.
• Use HEPA filters on all your vents and vacuum cleaners, and run a HEPA-filtered air purifier in the bedroom.
• Protect the air inside your home. Don’t allow anyone to smoke, control humidity with a dehumidifier, and use your air conditioning as much as possible.
• Make sure your home is clean and clutter free, keep food and garbage in tightly sealed bags and containers.
• Follow your doctor’s advice completely for asthma. It will include information about your medicine, advice for avoiding asthma triggers, and what to do if you have an asthma attack.

Know more about Asthma

Here is how you can live healthy even with Asthma:

• Know your triggers and avoid them. Triggers like allergens and irritants can make your asthma symptoms worse by irritating your airways.  The best way to control your asthma is to know what your asthma triggers are and how to avoid them.
• Take your asthma medication as prescribed by your doctor
  Many people think they can skip their asthma preventer (controller) medications when they don’t feel any symptoms – that’s not true. Asthma is a chronic (long-term) disease. If you have asthma, you have it all the time, even when you don’t feel symptoms. You have to manage your asthma every day, not just on days when you feel symptoms.
• Your health-care provider can show you how to use your inhaler properly so that your medicine reaches the airways.
• If you smoke and have asthma, you should quit smoking. this can significantly reduce the severity and frequency of your symptoms. Smoking can also reduce the effectiveness of asthma medication.
• Keep fit by exercising. Exercise helps by strengthening your breathing muscles, boosting your immune system and helping to keep healthy body weight. The key to exercising safely is to make sure your asthma is under control before you start.

Asthma and India:

One in every 10 asthma patients in the world is in India. 90 per cent of childhood asthma and 50 per cent of adult asthma is caused due to environmental allergens. Considered the most common chronic disease among children, Asthma is prevalent in all countries, whether they are developed or underdeveloped. Dust, cockroaches and pollens are the biggest causes of allergic asthma, according to an analysis of reports of five years, collected by a diagnostic centre in India.

Sadly, India is choking with asthma. The sales of anti-asthma medicines in India has gone up by 43% over the past four years. It is time that people start taking conscious actions to breathe healthy. People affected by air pollution must wear an N95 mask. We must also encourage the use of carpool and public transport to reduce traffic and thus reduce air pollution.

Consult our Pulmonary Department for details on Asthma. Please find below link: https://www.kokilabenhospital.com/departments/clinicaldepartments/pulmonarymedicine/asthma.html

World Tuberculosis Day: Protect Your Family & Friends Against TB | KDAH

World TB Day is observed on 24th March 2019 this year. The theme for this year is “It’s time”. The theme has a very strong message for everyone to take steps to prevent TB, cure TB and make the world TB-free. Tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially serious infectious disease that mainly affects your lungs. The bacteria that cause tuberculosis are spread from one person to another through tiny droplets released into the air via coughs and sneezes.

TB affects all age groups and all parts of the world. However, it is more prevalent in developing countries. India is the country with the highest burden of TB. The World Health Organisation (WHO) TB statistics for India for 2016 give an estimated incidence figure of 2.79 million cases of TB for India.

Fast facts on Tuberculosis

Here are some key points about tuberculosis:

• The World Health Organization estimates that 9 million people a year get sick with TB, with 3 million of these “missed” by health systems.
• TB is among the top 3 causes of death for women aged 15 to 44.
• TB symptoms may be mild for many months, and people ill with TB can infect up to 10-15 other people through close contact over the course of a year.
• TB is an airborne pathogen, meaning that the bacteria that cause TB can spread through the air from person to person.

Symptoms

Although your body may harbour the bacteria that cause tuberculosis (TB), your immune system usually can prevent you from becoming sick. For this reason, doctors make a distinction between:

• Latent TB: In this condition, you have a TB infection, but the bacteria remain in your body in an inactive state and cause no symptoms. Latent TB, also called inactive TB or TB infection, isn’t contagious. It can turn into active TB, so treatment is important for the person with latent TB and to help control the spread of TB.
• Active TB. This condition makes you sick and in most cases can spread to others. It can occur in the first few weeks after infection with the TB bacteria, or it might occur years later.

Signs and symptoms of active TB include:

• Coughing that lasts three or more weeks.
• Coughing up blood.
• Chest pain, or pain with breathing or coughing.
• Unintentional weight loss.
• Fatigue.
• Fever.
• Night Sweats.
• Chills.
• Loss of appetite.

Many strains of tuberculosis resist the drugs most used to treat the disease. People with active tuberculosis must take several types of medications for many months to eradicate the infection and prevent the development of antibiotic resistance.

Causes

Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria that spread from person to person through microscopic droplets released into the air. This can happen when someone with the untreated, active form of tuberculosis coughs, speaks, sneezes, spits, laughs or sings.

Although tuberculosis is contagious, it’s not easy to catch. You’re much more likely to get tuberculosis from someone you live with or work with than from a stranger. Most people with active TB who’ve had appropriate drug treatment for at least two weeks are no longer contagious.

Risk factors

A healthy immune system often successfully fights TB bacteria, but your body can’t mount an effective defence if your resistance is low. Here are a few conditions which increase your risk of TB:

• HIV/AIDS.
• Diabetes.
• Severe kidney disease.
• Certain cancers or their treatment.
• Drugs to prevent rejection of transplanted organs.
• Malnutrition.
• Very young or advanced age.

Complications

Without treatment, tuberculosis can be fatal. The untreated active disease typically affects your lungs, but it can spread to other parts of your body through your bloodstream. Examples of tuberculosis complications include:

• Spinal pain.
• Joint damage.
• Swelling of the membranes that cover your brain (meningitis).
• Liver or kidney problems.
• Heart disorders.

Protect your family and friends

If you have active TB, keep your germs to yourself. It generally takes a few weeks of treatment with TB medications before you’re not contagious anymore. Follow these tips to help keep your friends and family from getting sick:

• Stay home. Don’t go to work or school or sleep in a room with other people during the first few weeks of treatment for active tuberculosis.
• Ventilate the room. Tuberculosis germs spread more easily in small closed spaces where air doesn’t move.
• Cover your mouth. Use a tissue to cover your mouth anytime you laugh, sneeze or cough. Put the dirty tissue in a bag, seal it and throw it away.
• Wear a mask. Wearing a surgical mask when you’re around other people during the first three weeks of treatment may help lessen the risk of transmission.
• Finish your entire course of medication. This is very important when you stop treatment early or skip doses, TB bacteria have a chance to develop mutations that allow them to survive the most potent TB drugs.

Vaccines

Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is a vaccine for children for tuberculosis (TB) disease. It is a part of infant immunizations. Make sure your child gets it as a part of his/ her healthcare program.

Are you suffering from severe cough for several weeks? It is time to investigate further and get tested for Tuberculosis. Consult doctors at our Pulmonary medicine department for more details.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD) - KDAH Blog

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic lung disease that makes breathing progressively more difficult. COPD isn’t a single lung disease. It’s really two diseases that cause airflow blockage and breathing problems. It includes emphysema, which makes it hard to breathe, and chronic bronchitis, which is a mucus-producing cough that doesn’t go away. Most people with COPD have both. Roughly one-third, or 30%, of adults don’t know what COPD is, hence awareness of the diseases is the first step towards recovery.

Symptoms of COPD

COPD makes it harder to breathe by reducing the flow of air through the lungs. Reduced airflow may be caused by inflammation (airways may thicken and lose elastic quality), destroyed lung tissue and blockages of mucus.

Often, people don’t recognize the symptoms of COPD until later stages of the disease. Here are some symptoms to look out for...

Symptoms can be worse for a few days and become more manageable, then worsen again.

Causes of COPD

1. Smoking

About 85 to 90 percent of all COPD cases are caused by cigarette smoking. When a cigarette burns, it creates more than 7,000 chemicals, many of which are harmful. The toxins in cigarette smoke weaken your lungs’ defense against infections, narrow air passages, cause swelling in air tubes and destroy air sacs—all contributing factors for COPD.

2. Your Environment

What you breathe every day at work, home and outside can play a role in developing COPD. Long-term exposure to air pollution, second hand smoke and dust, fumes and chemicals (which are often work-related) can cause COPD. In rural India the burning of coal and wood for fuel also causes air pollution.

3. Alpha-1 Deficiency

A small number of people have a rare form of COPD called alpha-1 deficiency-related emphysema. This form of COPD is caused by a genetic (inherited) condition that affects the body’s ability to produce a protein (Alpha-1) that protects the lungs.

Treat COPD

There is no cure for COPD, but it can be treated. Those with COPD are at increased risk of developing heart disease, lung cancer and other conditions. Patients with COPD are encouraged to stop smoking and are often given medications to help with the symptoms and complications of the disease. Doctors may also prescribe lung rehabilitation or surgery to relieve symptoms. Sometimes, people with COPD receive lung transplants.

Prevent COPD

Here are some tips to keep your lungs healthy...

COPD in India

Currently, COPD is the third largest killer affecting an estimated 210 million people worldwide. Almost 90 percent of COPD deaths occur in low and middle-income countries. In India, it is the second largest killer and causes 22 million deaths. However, the alarming fact is that 25-50 percent of people with clinically significant COPD are ignorant about the disease and there is rampant misdiagnosis too.

Quick facts on COPD

• COPD can make daily activities, such as walking up stairs, getting dressed, and doing chores around the house difficult.
• Inflammation in the lungs smolders on chronically for decades, resulting in progressive damage to the tissue that supports airway structures and the gas exchange surface of the lung.
• A characteristic of the inflammatory response of COPD is that it is not responsive to long-term medication with drugs such as corticosteroids, which are used successfully for prevention of asthma.
• As it takes many years for the inflammation in the lungs to have an effect, COPD is primarily a disease affecting people over the age of 40.
• Cessation of smoking is the only significant therapeutic intervention that can retard the accelerated decline in lung function experienced by smokers with COPD.
• Although there is no cure for COPD, there are medicines, procedures, and lifestyle changes that can slow the progress of the disease and lead to a higher quality of life.

Do not miss the warning signs of COPD. COPD is often not found until the disease is very advanced because people do not know the early warning signs. Shortness of breath is many times mistaken as a sign of ageing. Consult experts at our Department of Pulmonary Medicine. Please find below link for more details:

https://www.kokilabenhospital.com/departments/clinicaldepartments/pulmonarymedicine/copd.html