How does asthma develop into COPD overlap? What can be done to reduce the overlap rate of asthma and COPD?
Asthma and COPD are two completely different diseases, but they can have similar clinical manifestations. It is not easy to clearly distinguish asthma and COPD, and there are more complicated situations, such as asthma-COPD overlap synthesis Sign, that is, the same patient suffers from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
How did these diseases develop like this?
First of all, the mechanism of the overlap between COPD and asthma is not yet clear, but there are similarities between them:
▶From the perspective of external factors (environment): It is generally believed that asthma and COPD have common environmental factors, such as smoking/air pollution.
▶In essence: Asthma and COPD are essentially chronic inflammations of the airways. Asthma airflow limitation is reversible, while COPD is not completely reversible.
When asthma is repeatedly poorly controlled and frequent attacks, the airflow limitation gradually becomes incompletely reversible, just like a balloon: when you first blow, you can always recover, but after you blow too much, you lose your elasticity. Similar to a balloon, asthma can easily evolve into an asthma-COPD overlap at this time.
The airway of patients with COPD may become fragile after being repeatedly stimulated by smoke, and even when stimulated by smoke again, the airway will have a high response, that is, COPD-asthma overlap.
Does it stop progress after overlap?
Frequent asthma attacks, even with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, there will be other diseases.
Asthma generally does not continue to be hypoxic. However, when asthma and COPD overlap, respiratory failure is prone to occur, and even type II respiratory failure can occur in severe cases.
Continuous hypoxia, as well as changes in airway structures, pulmonary vascular beds gradually decrease, long-term hypoxia secondary to changes in pulmonary arterioles, pulmonary vasoconstriction/remodeling, blood viscosity will increase, and blood volume will be correspondingly Increase, slowly, began to merge with chronic cor pulmonale.
What can be done to reduce the chance of asthma-COPD overlap?
Episodic dyspnea at the beginning of asthma, when combined with COPD, it becomes dyspnea after activity; when exposed to smoke stimulation, episodic dyspnea can still occur; when it evolves to pulmonary heart disease, paroxysmal dyspnea at night can occur .
Asthma is poorly controlled for a long time and can be combined with many diseases. In fact, it is far more than COPD/Pulmonary Heart Disease. Long-term chronic hypoxia can cause hypermetabolic syndrome, including diabetes/coronary heart disease and so on.
If asthma is only diagnosed in the early stage, what do we need to do to reduce the chance of asthma-COPD overlap?
Generally speaking, it is to control the status quo and reduce the number of attacks. We can do:
❶ Use the medicine regularly, do not reduce the dosage without authorization, and consult a doctor if you increase the amount of medicine;
❷ Make an asthma diary and ACT score to evaluate the condition objectively;
❸ Improve the living environment, reduce the contact between indoor and outdoor strainers, and adjust the mentality;
❹ Avoid colds and enhance immunity;
❺ If the previous points are done well or the attack is frequent, it is recommended to discuss with the attending doctor as soon as possible to adjust the medication plan.
Here, I would like to remind everyone again that although asthma cannot be cured, it can be controlled through effective treatment without affecting normal life and reducing the possibility of overlap and complications as much as possible.