Understand the symptoms of bronchitis

Feeling chest pain or tightness during any physical exertion? Getting frustrated by the constant coughing? Hearing a whistling or wheezy sound in your chest while you breathe? There is a chance that you could be suffering from chronic cough and that normal cough medicine may in fact work. But at the end of the day, one should check whether there is a different story.

The symptoms mentioned above can also be indicators of asthma or bronchitis, or similar respiratory disorders. Bronchitis is a respiratory disease in which the mucus membrane in the lungs' bronchial passages becomes inflamed. Slowly as and when the irritated membrane swells and grows thicker, it narrows or shuts off the tiny airways in the lungs, resulting in coughing spells that may be accompanied by phlegm and breathlessness. An acute form lasts a couple of weeks while a chronic form of this disease may even last from 3 months to a couple of years. So, when faced with chronic cough, it is best to get yourself examined by the doctor.

Acute bronchitis may be responsible for the hacking cough and phlegm production that sometimes accompanies an upper respiratory infection. In most cases, the infection is viral in origin, but sometimes it's caused by bacteria. If you are otherwise in good health, the mucus membrane should return to normal after you've recovered from the initial lung infection, which usually lasts for several days. In some heavy smokers, the mucus membrane lining of the airways stays inflamed and the cilia eventually stops functioning altogether. These are the symptoms of bronchitis one needs to look for.

When a cough persists over time, it becomes chronic, and is the result of an underlying condition which needs to be treated. In those cases just treating the cough will not help one recover, but in fact one needs to treat the underlying problem by getting it checked first. Reasons of chronic cough may be many, but is usually a case of bronchitis or asthma. It may also be caused by smoking, and hay fever, or even sinus problems. Infections and medications can also trigger chronic cough. Treatment for such cases include fluids, gargling with warm salt water and other home remedies that eases such cough along with prescribed medication.

When it comes to asthma, members of a family are more prone to asthma when they have a family history of allergies or asthma. If you have this disease, the airways are always inflamed, swollen, and muscles around can tighten when something triggers the symptoms. It makes air passage through the bronchial tubes difficult. That is what is asthma.