asthma

Your colds typically conclude with a dry, hacking cough that lasts a few days. But after one particular cold, your cough went on for weeks. You figured you had bronchitis.
You’d had bronchitis before. It was annoying, but nothing to worry about. You knew what to do: You took a cough suppressant, sipped herb teas, made a big pot of chicken soup, and upped your daily dose of vitamin C. But your coughing continued, and not just during the day. You also developed a symptom you’d never had before, terrible coughing fits that kept you up at night.
“The Bronchitis from Hell,” your doctor sighed, as he scribbled a prescription for antibiotics and a codeine cough syrup. But they didn’t help.
Four days later, a call to your doctor’s office got you a referral to a lung specialist. He listed to your story and had you blow hard into a strange tube. “You don’t have bronchitis,” he said. “You have asthma.”
“Asthma?” you gasped. “At my age? I’m a 53-year-old woman. I thought asthma was a childhood illness. And I though it caused wheezing. My problem is coughing.”
“Asthma is best known as a childhood disease,” the specialist replied, “so few people know that the majority of Americans who have it are adults. Many people, particularly women, get diagnosed in their thirties, forties, and fifties. And asthma doesn’t necessarily cause wheezing. A classic symptom is persistent coughing at night.”