Unusual Asthma Symptoms
It’s often said that asthma is a heterogeneous disease. This means that asthma affects each of us in unique ways. A part of this “uniqueness” means that some of us will feel unusual asthma symptoms. So, what are “unusual” asthma symptoms? Here’s what to know.
What are the usual asthma symptoms?
Asthma is a strange disease. By this, we mean that on most days you should feel no symptoms at all. But, asthmatic airways are said to be hypersensitive. This means they are chronically inflamed. There is some small degree of airway inflammation. This makes airways over-sensitive, or hypersensitive. A simpler way of wording this may be to say that your airways are “twitchy.”
On good asthma days, your airways are open. This means you can breathe normally. Your lung function should be normal or close to normal. But, when exposed to your asthma triggers, your “hypersensitive airways “over-react.” This chronic underlying airway inflammation gets worse. This causes asthma symptoms. This is called an asthma attack. Normal symptoms are as follows:
- Shortness of breath (dyspnea)
- Chest tightness
- Coughing
- Wheezing
You can Google just about any website and read about these symptoms. But, that’s not what we are looking at here. Today, we are interested in the unusual. So, this brings us to the question of the day:
What are unusual asthma symptoms?
These are symptoms that are not felt by all asthmatics. These are the symptoms that make you unique. They are things only felt by some people with asthma.
Here are some unusual asthma symptoms.
- Itchy chin
- Itchy throat
- Trouble sleeping
- Fatigue/sighing
- Fast breathing
- Anxiety (worrying)
- A chronic cough (it’s always there)
- Dry, hacking cough
- A runny nose
- Itchy nose
- Stuffy nose
- Sneezing
- Moodiness (grumpy)
- A headache
- Trouble exercising
- Trouble staying active
So, this is a list of uncommon asthma symptoms. You may experience some of these. The reason that symptoms vary from asthmatic to asthmatic is that we are all different. It’s also because there are different subgroups of asthma.
People with severe asthma may experience insomnia. They may feel fatigue during the day. They feel these along with usual asthma symptoms. This may explain why they might feel anxiety. People with cough-variant sthma may have a dry hacking cough. It may seem to always be there. People with allergic asthma may get a runny nose. They may experience an itchy or scratchy throat.
What to make of unusual asthma symptoms?
Many times, these symptoms appear before you have an attack. This makes it nice because they can be used as early warning symptoms and signs of asthma. They are warnings that an asthma attack is impending. This is nice, because they, in essence, are telling you that the actions you take right now can prevent an all-out asthma attack. This is how your asthma communicates with you.
So, how does this article relate to you? Do you ever experience any of these unusual asthma symptoms? Are there any other symptoms unlisted here that are unique to you? Please let us know in the comments below.
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