bronchitissymptoms

Did you know that every minute you breathe in and out around 20 times? That’s roughly 25 000 times a day. Amazing isn’t it, considering that you don’t have to think about it, until something goes wrong with this natural process.

When you breathe in, you draw air into your lungs. You don’t know what you’re breathing in, but you make the assumption that it is okay. The every day air that we breathe contains lots of things, such as pollutants like smoke, chemicals etc, irritants like pollen and dust and germs like colds and flu. When you breathe the air in, it goes in your nose and mouth (where it is filtered, heated and moistened), down the windpipe (trachea), which divides into two smaller tubes called the bronchi, and then into even smaller tubes called bronchial tubes. The bronchial tubes then turn into many other smaller tubes which end in little sacks called alveoli – two average adult lungs hold about 600 million of these (flattened out, they would cover about a third of a tennis court), surrounded by capillaries. This is how the air gets into your lungs. The lungs inflate (expand), the oxygen in the air is put into the blood (via the capillaries) to be taken around your body. The waste products (carbon dioxide) are expelled from the capillaries into the alveoli, and follow the path that the air took on the way in, and the lungs deflate (go down).

As the air is taken into your body, there are little hairs along the way that filter out germs, irritants and pollutants. These little hairs are called cilia, and they capture the bits your body doesn’t want, pushing them towards the nostrils (where they can be blown out) or towards the opening of the throat (where they will be carried to the digestive system to be taken out with waste).

Cigarette smoking can damage the cilia, meaning smokers are more susceptible to infection as the cilia can’t filter out the germs. Damaged cilia will also lead to bronchitis as they can’t prevent pollutants and irritants from entering the respiratory system, in turn causing a build up of mucous in response to the irritation. You then need to continually cough to get rid of the mucous – one of the main bronchitis symptoms.

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Are you showing signs of Bronchitis symptoms? If you think you are please read on so you can discover how to cure this illness quickly and easily.

Bronchitis is in most cases caused by a virus, and because of this antibiotics (which are used to treat bacterial infections rather than viral infections) won’t do any good for almost all viral-caused bronchitis. One sign that it is a bacterial infection is if you are coughing up yellow/green mucus. If this is the case, antibiotics won’t clear the bronchitis up any quicker. Your doctor might give you antibiotics if they suspect your bronchitis is caused by a bacterial infection, or sometimes just as a preventative if you are susceptible to recurrent bouts of bronchitis, or if you also have another infection with the bronchitis. But it is important to remember that the antibiotics won’t cure the bronchitis any quicker than if you just treat the symptoms and rest.

Do you smoke? If you are a smoker, or are at risk of more serious secondary infections, your doctor may prescribe antibiotics to stave off any infections.

Sometimes your doctor will give you asthma medicines. This by no means suggests that you have asthma, but the medicines will help open up your airways so you will find it much easier to breathe. With bronchitis, as the airways are inflamed and thickened with mucous, breathing can be difficult. So special asthma medications can make it easier to breathe, and stop the wheezing you can develop with bronchitis. If you have asthma, though, your doctor might monitor or change your medications and how you take them so you do not develop bronchitis.

If you are coughing and not able to stop, or it is keeping you awake at night, your doctor might also give you prescription-strength cough suppressants, which will suppress the need to cough (as this may cause more irritation and prevent the bronchitis from clearing all together). In general, however, it is best to bring up any mucous and not suppress it, as it will help clear any infections or irritants from your airways. You should just take enough suppressant to calm your cough, not stop it completely.

If your bronchitis progresses to something more serious, you may have to go to hospital – In most cases this is not due to the bronchitis itself, but a complication arising from it.

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Chronic bronchitis symptoms are not that different to acute bronchitis symptoms, although chronic bronchitis also involves recurrent infections, coupled with blue lips (from low levels of oxygen) and ankle, feet and leg swelling. The symptoms are also less severe.

Chronic bronchitis is usually caused by damaged airways (the lining of the airways becomes permanently thickened) – either through smoking, or being around polluted environments (chemical fumes etc). The prognosis for people with advanced chronic bronchitis is poor – the damage is usually done and cannot be reversed. Symptomatic relief is all that can be offered. Also, bacteria more easily settle in the thickened lining, meaning you can get more sick and more often. Chronic bronchitis is not fatal in itself, however when coupled with a decline in lung function, it can be fatal.

Acute bronchitis is usually caused by a virus, after a cold or flu, and lasts less than six weeks. Either the virus itself infects the airways, or the airways are more susceptible after a cold or flu and contract an infection. The symptoms are severe but temporary.

Bronchitis can also be caused by a condition called GERD, or gastroesophageal reflux disease (where the stomach acids bubble up into the windpipe, causing irritation and a chronic cough). Your doctor can prescribe medication to help with both the GERD and bronchitis.

Bronchitis can also occur in asthmatics (and is called, somewhat unimaginatively, asthmatic bronchitis), as the airways become damaged from repeated attacks. Both asthmatics and those with chronic bronchitis can develop asthmatic bronchitis. The causes are said to be bronchial hyperactivity, severe childhood respiratory infections and abnormalities of the immune system. The symptoms are the same as chronic bronchitis (wheezing, chest pain, cough, difficulty breathing and increased vulnerability to infections), but the airways can no longer remove the mucous with asthmatic medication. This is commonly treated with antibiotics (to keep serious bacterial infections away), medicines to open the airways and steroids. Asthmatic bronchitis is a type of chronic obstructive airway disease (or COPD).

Whatever the cause or progression, bronchitis symptoms are the same in all people.