Asthma — Receiving a Diagnosis
Asthma is generally not a difficult disease to diagnose and there are a variety of tests to help with the process. The process starts with some simple steps used in all diagnosis and can then get more complicated depending on the case.
 The first step in the process is to sit down with your doctor or health-care provider and create a detailed medical history. The health-care provider will ask you about your symptoms, how long you have been experiencing them, are they worse at certain times of the day or year, what medications you are currently taking, whether or not you smoke, are you experiencing headaches, etc. Symptoms which peak seasonally or during certain times of the day can provide the health-care provider with important clues as to what the cause of your symptoms is.
The next step should be a complete physical with special emphasis on the ears, eyes, nose, throat and chest. Wheezing is the most common sign of asthma so the health-care provider will listen to your chest with his or her stethoscope during the examination to see if wheezing can be detected.
During the physical, a nasal or sputum smear should be taken. This is sent over to the laboratory for evaluation. The mucus will be examined under a microscope to look for an excess amount of eosinophils. The eosinophils are the telltale allergy blood cell. In a normal body, eosinophils make up 3 to 4 percent of all white blood cells in ones body. In a person suffering from asthma and allergic diseases, this percentage will be higher.
If the health-care provider deems it necessary, a blood test may be taken next. One important part of the blood test is to measure the amount of allergic or IgE antibodies in your system. Elevated levels of IgE antibodies indicate that allergies are probably playing an important role in generating your asthma attacks.
There are other, less standard tests available if needed. A physician may want to run you through a breathing test which measures your current lung capacity. They have you blow into a tube to see how much air your lungs can expel in one second. These function studies are called “spirometry”. If desired, you can even measure your lung function at home or school with a peak flow meter. These are portable meters which again measure how quickly you can expel air from your lungs and are used as early indicators of an onset of asthma. Since they are portable, they can be useful in determining where you are encountering antigens that are triggering your asthma episodes.
If after a health-care professional has evaluated the data from your physical, medical history and smear test they feel your asthma is triggered by an allergy, they may move next to an allergy skin test. There are three types of skin tests; a prick test, a scratch test and the intradermal test. The prick test and scratch test are the most common and non-evasive methods. With the prick test, they place an allergen on your skin and then make a light prick through it with a needle to penetrate your skin and then look for a red or swollen reaction. The scratch test is where they lightly scratch your skin and place an allergen on top of the scratch and again look for a reaction. These tests are used first because they lessen the risk of a severe reaction to an allergen. When these two tests appear negative, the health-care provider may choose to move to the intradermal test. In this test, the allergen is injected under the skin with a needle. When the reaction is positive, the area can become red, swollen and develop a hive.
With respiratory symptoms that occur over and over, a health care provider may choose to take a chest x-ray. This is to screen for non-asthma diseases such as lung disease or an airway obstruction.
As you can see, the diagnosis of asthma is a fairly quick and accurate process. If you are concerned that you or your child is experiencing the symptoms of asthma, contact your health-care provider immediately to set this process in action.
Receiving an asthma diagnosis is certainly not the most pleasant situation because it is a chronic disease that does not have a cure. However, many adults suffering from asthma received their diagnosis as children. Yet, the asthma frequently disappears in the teen years and reappears later in life where yet another asthma diagnosis would be given. Still, there are those adults who find out they have asthma when they are 50, 60 or older!
 There are many symptoms of asthma like coughing, wheezing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath. If you have any of these symptoms then you need to visit your doctor and explain to him what is going on, how often you have these types of symptoms, and how they are affecting your life. Your doctor will certainly perform an evaluation and may even give you a complete physical. You can count on him listening to your breathing, examining how you breathe, and discussing your other symptoms with you.
You need to make sure that you are 100% upfront and honest with your doctor when he is asking you questions. The reason why is that there are other conditions that can make breathing difficult, not just asthma, and your doctor will want to rule out as many conditions as possible. Two of these common conditions are bronchiectasis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. If you don’t have either of these two conditions then the diagnosis of asthma is much easier.
There is one test that helps a doctor diagnose asthma and it is really easy to do. The doctor will give you a peak flow meter. This is a hand held device that measures how you breathe. You will perform this test without any medicine and your results will be recorded. Then, you will be given a medicine that is designed to open your airway. If you can exhale better after the medicine is given than you could before then more than likely you are diagnosed with asthma.
Yet another test used to diagnose asthma is the spirometry test. This test is frequently performed in a hospital and it is a computer test that can accurately measure how well your lungs inhale and exhale.
The Methacholine challenge test is also used to determine if an individual has asthma or not. When an individual who has asthma breathes the chemical breathing becomes more difficult. Breathing is restored to normal after using a fast acting inhaler.
Many times doctors will also recommend allergy testing and CT scans or X rays of the chest to rule out any other problems.
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