It is common to see<unk>  incorrectly used as a synonym for asthma The term<unk>  originally began to appear in medical literature in the 1980s in reference to asthmatic patients with hyperactive airways, which is a common feature of asthma. This feature is characterized by increased bronchoconstriction reactions in response to stimuli that should not elicit so strong of response. These stimuli can include methacholine, histamine, and distilled water. However, while this was how the term initially was introduced,<unk>  soon began to be used interchangeably with the term asthma itself, which has led to the current controversy over its place in medical diagnoses. More commonly,<unk>  is now mostly used by physicians when they are hesitant to diagnose a patient with asthma. This is most prominent in pediatric settings for a variety of reasons. While infants tend to wheeze more often than adults, only one third of them eventually go on to actually have asthma. Asthma and viral bronchiolitis can also be nearly identical to each other when presented in very young children, since they both consist of wheezing, coughing, and nasal congestion. In addition, typical tests used to accurately diagnose children with asthma, such as the bronchial challenge test, are not considered to be accurate for children under the age of five. This can be due to failure of very young children to cooperate. Diagnosing a child with asthma also carries a certain negative connotation, causing hesitancy from some physicians to do so. All of these factors lead physicians to label young children with<unk>  instead of asthma, since the disease is often only suspected and unable to be confirmed with pediatric patients. Physicians will generally label an adult with<unk>  if they have no prior diagnosis or history of asthma while exhibiting symptoms of wheezing, production of sputum, and/or the use of an inhaler. Symptoms may also include, but are not limited to, coughing, shortness of breath, excess mucus in the bronchial tube, swollen mucous membrane in the bronchial tube, and/or hypersensitive bronchial tubes. In order to make a formal asthma diagnosis in adult patients, there is requirement to have documentation of either airway hyperreactivity or some sort of reversible airway obstruction. If none of these symptoms are present in an adult patients' medical history or documentation, the physician may label the patient with<unk>  instead of asthma in order to still indicate there is an airway issue without formal diagnosis.
Reactive airway disease
Mineral dust airway disease
Asthma
Brittle asthma
Cardiac asthma
Thunderstorm asthma
Upper airway resistance syndrome
Plastic bronchitis