How To Do Asthma Breathing Test

Asthma is a very variable and dreadful disease that has victims from all over the world and nobody seems to be immune from this disease. Symptoms change from season to season, from day to day and from day to night. Some asthma symptoms occur only when a patient is exposed to certain triggers such as allergens, viral infections, exercise or cold air. This variability in asthma symptoms complicates diagnosis, and underlines the need to take a proper history of symptoms.

Doctors make accurate diagnoses when they consider symptom history and the results of spirometry tests. The breathing tests are simple, easy to perform and do not cause you any discomfort. These are the most important tests for asthma as they identify how well you breathe and how efficiently your lungs function. These tests measure the amount of air that you breathe out and its rate of expulsion in each breath which enables the doctor to detect narrowing of the respiratory passages, if any.

You may however become tired, if you have asthma, because of the effort required to breathe in and out deeply. One of the common breathing tests is called a Measurement Pause. The role of this test is to measure your sensitivity to the build-up of carbon dioxide as you are holding your breath. When you close off your nose, and keep your mouth closed, all of the carbon dioxide you produce in your body is trapped inside. Once the amount trapped reaches to the level you are used to, you will feel the desire to take a breath.

The measurement is timing how long this takes you to fell the desire to take a breath. The longer it takes, the higher your tolerance for carbon dioxide. The significance of this measurement will be explained later. Spirometry is a fairly simple breathing test or a machine that measures the flows and volumes of air you can blow out of your lungs and your vital capacity and forced expiratory volume (FEV). Vital capacity is the amount of air your lungs can hold when they are completely full.

Forced expiratory volume is the measurement of the amount of air forced out from the lungs in one second.For this test, you'll be asked to breathe out as fast and long as possible through a tube attached to a small machine. The procedure using spirometry involves taking a deep breath and then blowing the air out quickly. If the initial tests indicate abnormal breathing, you will be asked to take medicine and repeat the test after the narrowed airways are relaxed and open.

Peak expiratory flow is used for a simple test to measure how fast you expel air from your lungs. It measures the peak expiratory flow. Although this test is not as sophisticated as a spirometry, it is used because it is less expensive, easy to use and the required machine is portable. In order to measure the peak flow, you need to take a deep breath and then blow very hard into the mouthpiece of the peak flow meter.

Measurement of the peak flow helps your doctor determine the severity of your asthma. The results of the peak flow meter can vary in different situations. It is also very important to monitor your asthma so that you notice when there are acute asthma symptoms starting and take the necessary measures to get it under control before it leads to an asthma attack.