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Vocal Cord Dysfunction and Asthma |
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 Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease that makes air passages (bronchial tubes) particularly irritant-sensitive. It is characterized by breathing difficulties. Asthma is a highly ranked chronic health condition in adults in most western countries. It is also the leading chronic illness in children.
Asthma has no cure. However, for most patients the symptoms can be managed so that they suffer only minimal and infrequent symptoms and can live an active life. However, there are a number of illnesses which can mimic asthma symptoms and that results in a misdiagnosis.
One example of an illness that is commonly misdiagnosed as asthma is vocal cord dysfunction syndrome the symptoms of which can mimic an asthma attack. Usually the difficulty in making an asthma diagnosis is making it early enough
However, sometimes in people who do truly have asthma as well, difficulty in breathing can result from abnormal movements of the voice box during breathing. This can so closely mimic a severe asthma attack that a proper diagnosis is made very hard. However, if this condition is recognized, appropriate treatment is much easier to achieve. There are a number of other illnesses that can mimic asthma symptoms, though in comparison to asthma, these are all very rare, and they are also much rarer than vocal cord dysfunction.
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