What is Asthma?

Asthma is a chronic, inflammatory disorder of the airways. A person with asthma may not feel symptoms all the time. But when that person has an "asthma episode" (also called an asthma attack), it becomes hard for air to pass through the airways, resulting in breathing difficulties, wheezing, coughing, or other symptoms.



Breathing: Two Views

Modern Medicine

To understand asthma, it is helpful to understand how air moves in and out of the lungs:

• Fresh, oxygen-rich air enters the mouth/nose and moves down the trachea (also called your windpipe)
• The trachea splits into two major airways called bronchial tubes
• The bronchial tubes divide into smaller and smaller airways in the lungs
• The air finally reaches the smallest airways, called bronchioles
• The air enters tiny air sacs called alveoli; this is where oxygen is transferred into your lungs and carbon dioxide is picked up
• The air is exhaled out

Asthma occurs throughout the lung's bronchial tubes and bronchioles.

According to TCM

Breathing – Respiration [ 呼吸 (hū xī) ] – Def’n - the taking of air into and putting of air out of the lung. Normal breathing depends on the diffusion and depurative downbearing of lung qi. For more detailed explanation of these concepts according to Traditional Chinese Medicine please click here.