For the prevention of asthma it is not so much as cure as it is of control of your symptoms. For both Eastern and Western medicine it is a difficult disease to treat but in most cases it is not life threatening. The best method of treatment includes the identification and avoidance of asthma triggers for long term maintenance and well being.
A trigger is merely any foreign substance that you are exposed to from your environnment. Triggers can be allergic or non-allergic in nature. For instance, roaches can be a trigger to a flare up of your asthma symptoms. In particular, the proteins found in roach saliva and also secreted from the oil glands of the skin in pets and shed as dander are highly allergic for some people.
Many of us are familiar with pollen as being one of the major causes for seasonal allergies. Nearly all patients who experience asthma will also present with allergies in their health background. As with other respiratory problems such as the cold and flu, allergies can trigger the onset of your asthma. Between the morning hours of 5-10am pollen counts will be at their highest. Limiting outdoor activities during this time can reduce unnecessary irritation to your airways. Using an air conditioner instead of a fan will stir fewer indoor particles that could potentially make your symptoms worse.
Tobacco smoke, air pollution and strong smells(chemicals, perfumes) are an example of non-allergic triggers. Children of parents who smoke usually have more respiratory infections than those who don’t.
Modern Scientific Explanation
Given the range of debilitating diseases we can experience, asthma is not generally considered a very serious illness. Many children who have asthma eventually have very few or no symptoms of the disorder during adulthood. Of consideration are the wide spectrum of potential triggers.
There is some difficulty in finding the exact causes of asthma because some people experience asthma symptoms only when exposed to more than one trigger at a time. Research has found that developed and westernized countries have a much higher ratio of asthma than other areas of the world. In some instances as much as 40 times more!
One possible explanation being researched is known as the Hygiene Hypothesis. The reasoning behind the hypothesis claims that because we have less exposure to infections due to better hygiene and medicine our immune systems do not develop the way they use to. This causes us to be more susceptible to allergens and irritants in the environment. In addition extended antibiotic use early in life has been linked to asthma.