Symptoms, Flares, and Attacks
oNSET symptoms or early warning signs
These terms are interchangeable to an extent, but for the purpose of understanding your triggers it’s important that we characterize symptoms (or flare-ups) as even the slightest hint of the onset of symptoms. Early onset symptom or warning signs are different for each person and different for each episode. Each patient has a unique symptom threshold based on their offending allergens or irritants. Often until this symptom threshold is reached, you may not show symptoms.
Symptoms & Triggers of Childhood Asthma
However, if tracked, you may begin to understand what those early onset symptoms are that signal to you that your airways are becoming inflamed. Common early warning signs include;
Changes in breathing,
Changes in your mucus,
Runny, stuffy, or congested nose,
Sneezy,
Itchy, scratchy, or sore throat,
Itchy or watery eyes,
Dark circles under your eyes,
Tired, weak,
Not sleeping well, and
Pale
Asthma Management: Becoming a Self-Manager
It’s important to detect these early onset symptoms, record them in the context of your exposures, and build an exposure reduction and avoidance strategy based on how you are experiencing the weather, pollution, and pollen in your daily journey. Use DailyBreath for tracking the earliest onset symptoms so you can manage your asthma by avoiding triggers.
The use of a relief/rescue inhaler is the last line of defense when experiencing an asthma attack. Certainly symptoms can come on quickly and be experienced acutely, but recognizing your personal sensitivity to exposures and these signals may just help you to use your relief inhaler during an early onset phase of an asthma attack, and not when you are in complete respiratory distress. Evidence of symptoms, onset symptoms, are signals to you that your body is reacting to a recent exposure. The more you recognize these signals, the more you will know about YOUR triggers and how they affect YOUR asthma.
How you experience the environment around you is just as personal as your own genetic code. And, as we learn more about how you experience the environment, it’s likely we’ll learn about how effective your medications are in alleviating symptoms that are a result of your specific exposures. So, use your signals to pinpoint your triggers, what they are, and where you experience them in your community.