What Is Asthma?

IF SOMEONE IN YOUR FAMILY SUFFERS FROM ASTHMA, YOU PROBABLY have had the frightening experience of witnessing an asthma attack. Your child or spouse may begin to appear apprehensive and restless and may cough with each breath. Wheezing typically follows, beginning as a slight whistling sound with each exhalation and progressing to a noticeably shrill noise as your family member struggles to fill his or her lungs with air. Breathing usually becomes faster, and the sufferer appears to labor for each breath, perhaps sucking in so hard to fill the lungs that the chest appears concave. This sucking in of the chest (called retraction) occurs when a person with asthma cannot draw air into his or her lungs quickly enough. (It is most easily seen in children, who have small, flexible chests.)