The definition of Asthma is a "chronic respiratory disorder" and to be brutally blunt can be described as an equal opportunity disease. By this I mean that anybody can suffer from asthma regardless of wealth or socio-economic standing. You can suffer from Asthma anywhere and is very prevalent in almost all parts of the world.

There are basically two types of asthma and the danger with asthma is that sometimes there are symptoms resemble asthmatic symptoms but are not. The upshot of all of this is that it really is essential to understand what asthma actually is

The first major type of asthma is called Extrinsic Asthma. This is classified as that form of asthma which develops when the people prone to it are exposed to surroundings containing various allergens. Generally these people do not show any symptoms and appear to be perfectly healthy but upon exposure to an allergen that has the potency to develop symptoms in them they can develop the symptoms of asthma very quickly.

The manifestations and the symptoms that occur for this type of asthma can range from quite mild and almost unnoticeable to chronic reactions depending upon the reaction of the body towards the allergens concerned

People who generally develop asthma this way show a tendency towards other allergies and infections also like eczema.

The sort of reaction that such patients would give towards this type of asthma would be consistent with allergic reactions to more than one of the contributory allergens. These can be of any kind the toll and could be particles of dust, microscopic animal matter such as ground skin or fur etc. on the other hand these allergens could be man-made such as smoke or other types of atmospheric pollutants.

The point to remember here is that people who are usually prone to this type of asthma (and this is where it starts get confusing) may well have been suffering from excessive amounts all call and associated conditions such as repeated sneezing and coughing etc.

The next type of asthma that we want to look at is called intrinsic asthma. This type of asthma is generally not a resultant of allergic reaction to any kind of allergens. This has been known to be the sort of asthma that would develop later on in a person's life and has sometimes been referred to as late onset asthma. The disease may take full blown proportions and may manifest itself very quickly which makes it very dangerous as it has the ability to attack people who have no known history and therefore no immediate forms of prevention.

Because of this type of attack in the absence of any genetic historical footprint this type of asthma is and can be lethal. Intrinsic asthma normally occurs due to some disease of the lung that may have existed for a long time but may not have been detected. Sometimes it is seen that the patients suffering from some kind of bronchial infection in the early stages of life develop intrinsic asthma all of a sudden after many years of the infection being cured and without any manifestation of any kind of symptoms of recurrence of the infection. This only goes to show that the lung infections need to be detected and treated properly and should never be neglected.