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Although it’s a difficult word to spell, asthma is very common around the world. About 2.5 million Canadians and 300 million people worldwide have asthma, including many top athletes. If you manage your asthma well, it doesn't have to limit what you can do. Asthma is a chronic (long-term) disease that makes it hard to breathe. At its worst, asthma can be fatal. For example, in 2003, 287 Canadians died from asthma¹. Although there is no cure for asthma, it can be managed. With proper management, people with asthma can lead normal, active lives.

If you have asthma your airways (breathing passages) are extra sensitive. When you are around certain things, your extra-sensitive airways can:

Become red and swollen: Your airways get inflamed inside. They fill up with mucus. The swelling and mucus make your airways narrower, so it's harder for the air to pass through.

Become "twitchy" and go into spasm: The muscles around your airways squeeze together and tighten. This makes your airways narrower, leaving less room for the air to pass through.

The more red and swollen your airways are, the more they may spasm.

In people without asthma, the muscles around the airways are relaxed, allowing the airways to stay open. There is no swelling or mucus inside the airways. In people with asthma, the inside of the airways can become red, swollen, and filled with mucus. In people with asthma, the muscles around the airways can spasm and squeeze tighter. This leaves less room for air to pass through.

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There are many terms that health care providers and the general public use to describe the different asthma types, such as:

• childhood asthma
• infant asthma
• allergy asthma
• adult onset asthma
• occupational asthma
• bronchial asthma
• acute asthma
• chronic asthma
• coughing asthma or cough variant asthma
• exercise-induced asthma or sports-induced asthma
• viral asthma or viral-induced asthma
• acid reflux asthma
• aspirin-induced asthma

All of these different terms are describing variations of the same thing. Your lungs are reacting to something that leads to a combination of one or more of swelling, extra mucus, and airway spasm (tightening of the muscles that surround your airways), which lead to the common symptoms of coughing, shortness of breath, chest tightness or wheezing.

These different terms are related to when you get asthma, what causes your symptoms, or what your main symptom is. Although these terms have some meaning, the same basic strategies apply to everyone with asthma:

1. Avoid the thing or things that make your asthma worse (once you figure these out)
2. Take proper medications to keep away the inflammation, mucus and airway spasm.

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