Children with asthma and other lung diseases can and should participate in physical activities with peers. Physical activity is important for normal growth and development and for the child’s quality of life. . Remember that physical activity should be fun!

Asthmatic breathing problems (density) can be triggered or exacerbated by respiratory infections, allergies, irritants (eg. Cigarette smoke), cold and physical exertion.

By activity, you have to breathe faster. This gives a sudden heat and fluid loss in the airways. In those who have sensitive airways can lead to an asthmatic reaction. The exercise-induced asthma is physical activity the triggering cause of the density.

How strong reactions will depend on:

- Rate of asthma
- Day Form
- External factors, such as allergy-causing substances from bl. a tree, grass, animals, mites, irritants from perfumes and climatic changes that cold.

Some children with asthma is untreated or not adequately treated with asthma medications. Thus, many of these respiratory symptoms during physical activity. Some are better if they are treated with steroids, while others will continue to have problems and need additional medication, and adaptation to be able to hang with the physical activities with peers.

Asthma triggered by exertion can put severe limitations for the child’s play and the physical display and therefore provides a lower quality of life.

With the right medication and organization of activities should children with exercise-induced asthma could work on a par with peers. The activity must be pleasurable and arranged so that the child can master it and the risk of exercise-induced asthma is reduced.

Problems with participation in gymnastics hours because of asthma may not result in exemption. It is to make the child a disservice. In difficult cases, it is especially important to collect information / guidance from a doctor, physiotherapist, nurse or nurse about your child’s illness and what needs to be done for your child to participate.

Information about the child’s illness must be given to teachers, kindergarten staff and managers so that they may understand the issues and can arrange activities to give your child a chance to work properly.

Especially in infant and toddler age can be difficult. But it’s important to get the child to the doctor when the child is really sick.

When a child has been asthmatic in connection with an infection more than two times, usually Mon happy to say that “now is diagnosed with asthma” set.

When children get bigger, your doctor still supports the clinical findings, but also to the spirometry measurements. Reversibility is important for diagnosis, ie spirometry measurements showing the normalization after the patient has been inhaling beta 2-agonists such.

The infection triggered asthma in infant and toddler age have a good prognosis, ie, most are significantly improved or fresh for 4-5 years. Something different is it with kids that start up with asthma later. There are often allergic components in the disease picture.

The lighter the child is suffering, the greater chance there is that the asthma symptoms are gone or has been significantly better when puberty is passed.

We estimate that 30-50% have grown out of asthma symptoms at the time. If the external circumstances are unfortunate, someone who gets asthma back in adulthood.
- Is there a distinction between allergic asthma and asthma without allergy?

A pure allergic asthma is rare. Is it an allergy that has tripped the bronchial state, that in addition also called non-specific, ie, asthmatics are poor of other stuff as cold, heavy physical activity, smoking of others, including viral infections.

Some children only have asthma symptoms during the pollen season or in contact with fur-bearing animals, usually cats.

Non-allergic asthma are clearly more common in infants and toddlers who develop symptoms associated with infections and adults who have asthma later in life.

Cold allergy and hives are caused by exposure to especially cold water. Urticaria due to cold or cold water can cause severe reactions like swelling on large parts of the body. Cold Allergy could be one cause of allergic shock. Cold Allergy triggered most often by swimming in very cold water.
In cities and towns are cold days with little wind and high traffic volume result in increased concentrations of gases and particles in the air. Nitrogen dioxide, NO2 from combustion engines (older cars) can contribute to increased air pollution.

Especially people with asthma may react to NO2 with impaired lung function. In Norway it is particularly exhaust from diesel engines that contribute to increased pollution outside. Along with traffic will also fireplace on cold days to be a significant source of polluted air with a lot of particulate matter. Here come the biggest emissions from old wood stoves.

Particulate matter can both trigger and worsen the disease in people with chronic respiratory disorders. Particulate matter may also be carriers of allergens that can trigger allergies.

It is important to note that training in extreme cold can also lead to worsening of asthma if they do not protect themselves well enough. So-called exercise-induced asthma can indirectly be caused by strenuous exercise in cold weather because it gets too much direct flow of cool air into the airways. Exercise-induced asthma may occur by hard training or competition for more than 15 degrees of frost.

The normal respiratory tract may partly respond to exertion in the cold, both in animals and humans. Tissue samples from the respiratory tract in sled dogs who have been involved in sled dog in Alaska showed various degrees of inflammatory reactions – just as in our cross country athletes when they compete in cold weather.

However, it is important to remember that physical activity improves stamina and the ability to cope with asthma. People with asthma can participate in regular physical activity, even in cold weather, provided good protection against the cold in front of nose and mouth and with an individual needs asthma medication. In general, should not those with asthma run cardio at temperatures below -10 degrees?

But asthma disease is very individual with fluctuations in disease course and some will experience problems with the breath already by a few degrees of frost. It is important to have knowledge of their disease and that one takes into account their own reactions.

Cold weather offers additional challenges for people with asthma and respiratory ailments. With good preventative measures, proper medication and protection against cold asthmatics can still walk outside in the winter cold. The cold alone is often not the biggest problem. Particle pollution caused by cold weather, especially in cities and towns will often exacerbates asthma. Frequent colds during the winter months will also help to improve symptoms. Asthma is a disease with many forms of presentation, but most will feel uncomfortable in cold weather. It is important to be careful with strenuous exercise in very cold weather (<10 ° C).

The reason that many people with asthma gets worse when they breathe in cold air, caused by over-sensitive airways and not the cold allergy. The cold air drivers indirectly to the drying of the airways and thus narrowing. In very cold weather are also more difficult to breathe through the nose. People with asthma causes breathing by mouth to further narrowing of the airways because the air does not have time to get warm before it reaches the airways.

The nose has a very important role in protecting the airways against untreated air and it has been shown that the size of the nose affecting the ability to breathe through the nose. To live in very cold climates (Greenland) can be difficult, and studies have shown that they have a higher nose caves than many other ethnic groups!

The development of asthma disease is complex and composed and is due to factors from both the heritage and environment. Hereditary asthma often occurs together with eczema and allergies. Obesity may be a risk factor in asthma. Boys are more likely to get asthma as children. Non-hereditary asthma may be due to the effect of respiratory infections, various substances in the working environment (occupational asthma – see separate facts-page), pollution in indoor and outdoor environments, different aspects of our diet and tobacco smoke in people who are predisposed (genetic factors) of developing asthma.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory condition of the state or irritation in the airways. This provides a hypersensitivity of the airways that can lead to repeated episodes of coughing, chest tightness, breathlessness, or rattle, especially at night or early morning. Between episodes of worsening breathing can be normal.

Asthma attacks triggered by one or more of the following factors: the allergenic substances such as pollen, mold , tobacco smoke, dust, pollution, fog, cold, various gases, strong smells, stress, medications, exercise, viral infections and some medications.
What happens in the respiratory system?

In particular, three factors, each of which causes seizures;

– Cramps in the muscles around the airways.
– Irritation / dermatitis (inflammation) in the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract that is caused by infection. The inflammation causes swelling of the mucous membrane, respiratory system are small and it becomes harder to breathe.
– Slim accumulation in the airway

Examples of occupations with increased risk of getting severe asthma and why it occures:
Bakers flour, enzymes
Spray Painters di-isocyanates, amines
Farmers Animal Figures Workers animal proteins
Welders, sheet metal workers welding fumes, di-isocyanates
Bone wax, cleaners, acid and alkaline reingjøring funds
Carpenters, carpenters trestøv
Nurses latex, drugs, disinfectants

Which exposure may aggravate existing asthma?

All drugs have mucosal irritant effect, can worsen symptoms of asthma. This applies to many forms of both organic and inorganic dust, smoke, gas and steam. Bad indoor environment can also trigger symptoms in asthmatics, like physical exertion, cold and stress.
Measures

All adults who have asthma or are experiencing severe worsening of their asthma should consider whether the work environment have or have had significance for respiratory complaints.

In a study of the labor inspectorate in 2007 called “Stop exclusion of asthmatics” found that all kinds of measures that were implemented to reduce the exposure had a positive effect. It was not possible to rank the measures according to effectiveness, because asthma is a disease characterized individually and it works well for one does not necessarily work equally well for the other. The measures should be adapted to individual needs. From other studies we know that the effect of different measures is better the earlier in the course they will.

Asthma cause and prevention is important to live a better healthier life.

The development of asthma may have different causes. Allergy is an important factor and the vast majority of children with asthma have allergies at the same time. This may be due to hereditary factors. Asthma which debuts in early childhood are often different from asthma that starts in adulthood.

Scientists do not know enough about why the incidence of asthma increases. This may be due to environmental factors and lifestyle. With people living primitive, the asthma and allergy rare ailments. Frequency increases with increased living standards. Environment and lifestyle must therefore be significant. But exactly which environmental factors play in, and which are most important, is uncertain.

In recent years, the so-called hygiene hypothesis got a lot of discussion. The original hygiene hypothesis, says that infection protects against asthma and allergy. This hypothesis one is pretty much gone away. The hygiene hypothesis, says simply that it is healthy with bacteria and fungi, as long as they do not give infections.

An important advice on the prevention of children developing allergies and asthma later, is that they are protected from passive smoking

For children in so-called high-risk families where inheritance seems to play an important role in the development of asthma and allergy, it is recommended to continue to avoid allergens (smoke, pets, mold due. moisture, mites, etc.) in the home environment.