Asthma, also called bronchial asthma, is a disease that affects your lungs. It’s a chronic (ongoing) condition, meaning it doesn’t go away and needs ongoing medical management. Asthma affects more than 25 million people in the U.S. currently. This total includes more than 5 million children. Asthma can be life-threatening if you don’t get treatment. What is an asthma attack? …

An asthma attack describes a worsening of asthma symptoms. They can come on suddenly and take you completely by surprise or build up gradually over several hours. Asthma is a lung condition that makes your airways narrow. It causes symptoms like coughing, wheezing or shortness of breath that make it hard to breathe. Most people with asthma can manage their symptoms with a combination of medication …

Asthma is a long-term (chronic) lung disease that affects your airways. Your airways are the tubes that carry air in and out of your lungs. When you have asthma, you can’t get air into your lungs because your airways swell and get too narrow. Like a pinched straw, this makes it hard for you to breathe, which can cause wheezing, coughing and chest …

Exercise-induced asthma happens when your airways get smaller during exercise, making it hard for you to breathe. You may have asthma symptoms like coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath during or after physical activity. Symptoms can be worse when the air is cold and dry, or when pollution levels and pollen counts are high. Exercise-induced asthma is also called exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB) or sports-induced asthma. How common is …

Asthma is a disease that affects your airways, making it hard to breathe. When asthma begins or gets worse because of your job, healthcare providers may diagnose work-related asthma. For 15% to 33% of adult-onset asthma, their asthma is work-related. Work-related asthma has two categories: Occupational asthma starts due to inhaling (breathing in) irritants in the workplace. Work-exacerbated asthma is when existing asthma gets …

Astrocytomas are tumors that develop in your central nervous system (CNS) that grow from star-shaped astrocyte cells. They usually develop in your brain but can develop in your spinal cord as well. Astrocytomas can be benign (noncancerous) or malignant (cancerous). Astrocytes are glial cells (the type of cells that provide supportive tissue in your brain). Other glial cells include oligodendrocytes and ependymal cells. Astrocytoma is the most common glioma. …

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a lung injury that happens when fluids build up in small air sacs (alveoli) in your lungs. ARDS prevents your lungs from filling up with air and causes dangerously low oxygen levels in your blood (hypoxia). Healthcare providers typically diagnose a person as having mild, moderate or severe respiratory distress syndrome. They determine that level …

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic (ongoing) autoimmune disease that causes pain, swelling and stiffness in the lining of your joints (synovium). It most commonly affects the joints in your fingers, hands, wrists, knees, ankles, feet and toes. RA usually occurs in the same joints on both sides of your body, which makes it different from some other types of arthritis. Uncontrolled inflammation damages cartilage, which …

Viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are a group of viral infections that can cause uncontrolled bleeding. They spread in many ways, including through insect bites and contact with body fluids of infected people or animals. The viruses in this group range in severity. Many of them cause mild illness. But all of them can damage your blood vessels and interfere with your blood’s …

Septic arthritis (also known as infectious arthritis) happens when an infection spreads to one or more of your joints and causes inflammation. The inflammation is in the surface of the cartilage (a type of connective tissue) that lines your joints and the synovial fluid that lubricates your joints. Bacteria, a virus or fungus may cause the infection, which usually comes …