World Asthma Day: A Guide to Preventing Asthma Attacks

May is dedicated to Asthma by GINA (Global Initiative for Asthma) to raise awareness, care and support for the disease. Asthma is a respiratory disease that can affect people of any age group and still has no cure. There are around 300 million people around the world who suffer from asthma, out of which 1/10^th are from India. Even though it is a disease with no cure we can take precautions and undertake simple treatments to keep asthma under check and curb it from impacting our lives too much. Most common symptoms of Asthma include:

• Coughing
• Breathlessness
• Wheezing
• Heavy chest

The severity of the symptoms vary from person to person. They usually come and go but stay longer for some people. At times the symptoms get worse that’s when you get an asthma attack. To avoid such attacks, we can take certain preventive measures from our end for a healthy life. Here are some dos & don’ts you can follow to keep your asthma in check and prevent a possible attack:

• Don’t be around elements that can stimulate the attack like smoke, dust, pollen, cold and irritants
• Get your pneumonia and flu vaccines on time
• Try to be indoors in humid weather and season changes
• Do not expose yourself to closed and dusty corners
• Wash your bedding with hot water every week to avoid accumulation of dust
• Take your medication and inhalers everywhere you travel
• If done regularly, breathing exercise may help reduce or even prevent asthma attacks

The ideal way of living is always to know what your body and its conditions are and to design an appropriate life around it, although, at times, we can still fall prey to diseases. During that hour a medical insurance policy gives us the financial aid that we may not always be able to provide for. So get yourself insured today and allow us to take care of your medical expenses, if and when they occur.