If you’re one of the 27 million Americans asthma affects, Suburban Allergy Consultants can help. The team of allergy, asthma, and immunology experts, led by Corinna Bowser MD, FAAAAI, FACAAI, and Andrew Murphy MD, FAAAAI, provides exceptional services to diagnose and treat asthma at convenient locations in Narberth, Havertown, West Chester, West Grove, and Coatesville, Pennsylvania. To learn more, schedule a visit by calling the office nearest you or using the online booking tool.
Asthma is a condition that causes your airway to swell, narrow, and produce excess mucus. When you have an asthma attack, it can be incredibly difficult to breathe, and it can make you cough and wheeze uncontrollably.
Some of the symptoms of asthma include:
Asthma symptoms are highly variable from person to person. Some people have attacks very infrequently, while others have them quite often. Some people show symptoms all the time, while others only have issues in particular circumstances or situations.
It’s not exactly clear what causes asthma, and why some people have it and others don’t. Some of the conditions that can make you more likely to have asthma include:
If you have asthma, your condition is likely prone to certain triggers. Some of the common asthma triggers include:
In the majority of young and middle-aged people, asthma is allergy-induced and triggered by exposure to certain allergens, like pet dander, cockroach waste, mold spores, or pollen.
The team at Suburban Allergy Consultants performs a number of different evaluations to determine whether you have asthma.
They take your health history (including your family’s health history), perform a physical exam, and administer pulmonary function tests, or breathing tests. In one such breathing test, spirometry, you blow into a device that measures the speed of your airflow.
The practice also offers in-house lung function testing and can test for exhaled nitric oxide, which measures any inflammation in your lungs. They also provide rhinolaryngoscopy, which enables them to make sure that your condition is actually asthma and not an anatomical issue with your vocal cords.
The allergy specialists at Suburban Allergy Consultants are uniquely suited to diagnose and treat asthma since allergies most often cause asthma. Identifying your particular allergens can help you reduce the need for asthma medications and unwanted side effects, and can help keep your asthma under control and keep you out of the emergency room.
There is no cure for asthma, but you can reduce the severity of its symptoms. Breathing exercises can help increase your lung capacity and reinforce your breathing during attacks, while rescue treatments like inhalers can provide you with quick relief when you're in the midst of an attack. Long-term treatment, like immunotherapy, can also help reduce your asthma symptoms
Schedule your asthma consultation with Suburban Allergy Consultants by phone today or request one using the online booking tool.