Asthma: Too Much Diagnosis and Too Much Medicine

Abstract

Asthma is the diagnosis for the teenage athlete with exerciseinduced wheezing, the adult aspirin-sensitive patient on steroids, the toddler who wheezes with every upper respiratory infection, and the college student who returns home and wheezes around her cats. These conditions are not the same. The pathophysiologies differ as well as the outcomes. They only share a common symptom: wheezing. We try to be aware of medical diagnoses that present with wheezing such as gastroesophageal reflux, sinusitis, and foreign bodies in the airways.