Patients commonly present with dyspnea, which is paroxysmal, restricting both inhalation and exhalation and is accompanied by wheezing and sometimes cough. This is due to severe bronchiospasm resulting as the body attempts to expel excessive mucous from within the bronchial passages. Personal history may include chronic allergic rhinitis or an acute lung illness, such as bronchitis. Family history most often includes asthma, COPD and/or other lung diseases.
From a TCM standpoint, asthma, called Chuan Xiao, is seen therapeutically in a similar manner to other respiratory ailments. That is, as a result of pernicious external pathogenic processes invading the lungs and effecting the Lung, Kidney and Spleen. Contributing factors include diet, chronic respiratory infections, improper care after illness, climactic change, emotional turbulence, and overstrain or "stress," all of which leads to the retention of endogenous phlegm. Phlegm and Qi then ascend inappropriately to the throat resulting in the symptoms we call asthma. Chronic or recurrent asthma may result in simultaneous asthenia (deficiency of healthy Qi) of the Lung, Spleen and Kidney and could progress further to involve the Heart, resulting in critical conditions.
Diagnostically, asthma can be seen to involve one of the five causative syndromes: Retention of Cold-Fluid in the lung; Retention of Phlegm-Heat in the lung; Asthenia of Spleen and Lung Qi; Asthenia of Lung and Kidney Yin; and Asthenia of Heart and Kidney Yang. These syndromes tend to represent a progression from mild to critical and may be found in transition or in multiple forms.
