your health
ONE STEP AT A TIME
ANATOMY 101: What happens to you
When your asthma fl ares up, it’s
time to take fast action. Here’s why. during an asthma attack?
Deep in your lungs an exchange takes place that your life depends
on. Carbon dioxide moves out of your blood and life-giving oxygen
moves into your blood. This exchange takes place in the tiny round
air sacs called alveoli.
Your alveoli are at the end of your bronchiole
tubes. Bronchiole tubes branch out
ALVEOLI
from your two bronchi, which join
to form your windpipe. You can
picture this as an upside-down
tree. The windpipe is the trunk,
branching to two bronchi, then
smaller bronchiole tubes, and
BRONCHUS
fi nally the alveoli are the leaves.

When your asthma fl ares up,
your airways react to something
—cold air, a virus, smoke, an allergy
BRONCHIOLE
trigger—and they start to swell,
tighten and clog. This makes it hard for
your lungs to create that important
oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange,
and breathing becomes dif_f_i cult.
Asthma Flares Up
NORMAL AIRWAYS. AIRWAYS TIGHTEN. When AIRWAYS CLOG. An asthma
When all is well, the bron-
{
asthma fl ares up, the lining of the fl are-up can also cause the
chiole tubes are open wide bronchiole tubes swell and the lining of the bronchiole tubes
to allow air to fl ow freely. muscles around the bronchiole to make more mucus than
tubes tighten or constrict. This normal. This clogs the already
{
makes the tube narrower so air narrowed tubes.
doesn’t fl ow as easily.
IT’S AN EMERGENCY WHEN:
• You don’t improve after you’ve • You have blue lips or fi ngernails.
taken two treatments of your
• You are struggling to breathe,
quick-relief medicines.
talk or stay awake.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JUSTIN MULLINS SPRING 2010 | HEALTHY ADVICE 29
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