How is the severity of asthma diagnosed?

In order to diagnose the severity of asthma, your doctor needs to know how often you're experiencing asthmatic symptoms. Keren Bakal, MD, discusses common symptoms and how they're used to diagnose the severity of asthma.

Transcript

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KEREN BAKAL: In order to diagnose the severity of asthma, you really want to find out how often the person is experiencing

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a symptom.

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Asthma symptoms can be different for different people, but generally speaking, most people will experience wheezing, which is a whistling sound when

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you exhale; chest tightness, or a feeling of pressure in the chest. A lot of people experience shortness of breath when their asthma flares up.

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And some might even experience a cough. Some may experience all of these symptoms. Some of these symptoms, it really

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varies depending on the person. In order to diagnose the severity of asthma, you really want to find out how often the person is experiencing

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the symptoms. Is it once a week? Is it once a month? And also, are they experiencing these symptoms at night?

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That actually gives you a lot of information. So if somebody is having nighttime symptoms of asthma every night, then they're going to be a severe asthmatic.

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You also want to find out how often have they had flareups of this condition. Did they have four flareups this year?

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Did they need medication for the flareup? Did they go to the emergency room? So those are some of the ways you could determine

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the severity of asthma. The flareup, generally speaking, is

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a person will experience those symptoms of asthma-- so shortness of breath, chest tightness, or wheezing. They may use their inhaler for those symptoms,

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but they continue occurring. When that occurs, then we sometimes have to give a medication short-term,

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like an oral steroid, to help calm down that flareup. And if it's from an infection, we may give an antibiotic.