Diagnosis of asthma

Your doctor will ask you about your symptoms, this will include:

• Your family history of asthma and allergies
• What tends to cause the symptoms or make them worse
• Periods of shortness of breath, coughing or chest tightness and when these periods occur
• Colds that seem to “go to the chest” or take more than 10 days to get over

Your doctor may do a test called Spirometry, to check your airways.  This test is used to measure the amount of air blown out and how fast after taking a deep breath. If your airways are inflamed or swollen, the results for the test will be lower than normal. Spirometry is also used to monitor your asthma over time and to check how you are doing.

Other than this test, your doctor may recommend you to have other tests which could include:

• An allergy test to find out if and what affects you
• A test to see how your airways react to exercise
• A test to check if you have sinus disease
• A test to check if you have gastroesophageal reflux disease

There are four levels of asthma severity classification which are:

• Mild Intermittent – symptoms twice a week and symptoms at night twice a month

• Mild persistent – symptoms more than twice a week but only once a day and symptoms at night more than twice a month. Asthma attacks may affect your activity.
• Moderate persistent – symptoms daily and symptoms at night more than once a week. Asthma attacks may affect your activity.

• Severe persistent – you experience symptoms throughout the day and often during the night. Physical activity is likely to be limited.