Symptoms of cardiac asthma, pay attention to them in your life

Everyone is familiar with asthma. It seems that the symptom of asthma is difficulty breathing, and there are no other symptoms. If you think so, you are wrong. There are many symptoms, and everyone may only have a superficial understanding. Let us learn about the symptoms of cardiac asthma.

Cardiac asthma is paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea. This disease mostly occurs in the elderly, usually due to chronic heart failure caused by hypertension, coronary heart disease, etc. The most prominent clinical manifestations are paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea and cardiac asthma. A typical attack occurs 1 to 2 hours after a deep sleep at night. The patient is suddenly awakened by shortness of breath and is forced to sit up and open the window immediately in an attempt to relieve the feeling of suffocation. The attack is accompanied by paroxysmal coughing, asthmatic breathing sounds, or coughing up foamy sputum. For mild cases, the breathing difficulties will automatically disappear after sitting for ten minutes to an hour, and the patient will be able to fall asleep again.

Typical bronchial asthma has precursor symptoms before an attack, such as sneezing, runny nose, coughing, chest tightness, etc. If not treated in time, asthma may occur due to worsening bronchial obstruction. In severe cases, the patient may be forced to sit or sit up to breathe, have a dry cough or cough up a lot of white foamy sputum, and even cyanosis. However, it can usually be relieved by oneself or with treatment of anti-asthmatic drugs. Some patients may suffer another attack or even persistent asthma after a few hours of relief.

In addition, there are atypical manifestations of asthma in clinical practice, such as cough variant asthma, in which patients cough for more than 2 months without obvious causes, often with attacks at night and early morning, and aggravated by exercise, cold air, etc. Airway reactivity tests show high reactivity, and antibiotics or antitussive and expectorant drugs are ineffective. The use of bronchial spasmolytics or corticosteroids is effective, but other diseases that cause coughing need to be ruled out.

Depending on the presence or absence of allergens and the age of onset, asthma is clinically divided into exogenous asthma and intrinsic asthma. Exogenous asthma often occurs in childhood and adolescence, and most patients have a family history of allergies and are type I allergic reactions. Endogenous asthma usually occurs in adults without any known allergens, has no obvious seasonality, and rarely has a history of allergies. It may be caused by an infection foci in the body. Regardless of the type of asthma, mild cases can gradually improve on their own, with no symptoms or abnormal signs during the remission period.