Diagnosing Asthma
Diagnosing asthma and children and young persons can be difficult. It is important to seek advice from your GP if you suspect you or your child has asthma. This is because some other conditions can also mimic asthma, so it is important that a healthcare professional excludes these first.
Writing down the symptoms your child experiences and when and having a list of your questions will help you prepare for your doctor's appointment. A video can be helpful if your child experiences any peculiar breathing sounds.
Common Symptoms
Some common symptoms may be highly suggestive of asthma. This includes coughing, wheezing (a whistling sound when you breath), breathless and chest tightness or even chest pain.
Coughing may be frequent through the day or even at night. In fact, children frequent coughing at night commonly have asthma or poorly controlled asthma. It may occur due to particular triggers, including playing or exerting yourself. Wheezing may occur on exertion, or particular triggers. It is critical that you discuss with your doctor if you think particular foods or medicines make you suddenly wheezy. Breathlessness may also occur during asthma exacerbations. Different triggers can also worsen this. Some children find activity and sports can be limited by breathlessness and wheezing during activities.
Asthma and "suspected or probable asthma"
If you have typical symptoms as above of asthma, your GP will support you to reach a diagnosis of asthma and provide you with a treatment plan. If it is not entirely clear, your doctor may say "suspected or probable asthma" and may trial some inhalers to see if it helps you.
They may also refer you to our Paediatric Asthma service. It can be very helpful to keep a diary of what helps and worsens your symptoms.
Putting it all together
Unfortunately, there is no one single test to diagnose asthma, so your doctor or specialist nurse will piece together the difficulties you have been having.
They may consider other tests if available such as medical devices for testing your breathing (e.g. peak flow test, FeNO test), a chest x-ray, or blood tests to identify triggers and exclude other conditions.
No one size fits all, so your team will work together with you to help and support you.