Understanding Wheezing - the Basics

What Is Wheezing?

Many people with respiratory allergies know that bouts of wheezing often come with the arrival of hay fever season. Mild wheezing may also accompany respiratory infections such as acute bronchitis and may be experienced by patients in heart failure and by some with emphysema (COPD). But the characteristic whistling sound of wheezing is a primary symptom of the chronic respiratory disease asthma.

A variety of conventional and alternative remedies can alleviate wheezing. However, you should be regularly monitored by a doctor if you have asthma, severe allergies, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, or COPD. It is often worthwhile to be evaluated at least once by a specialist such as an allergist or pulmonologist.

What Causes It?

The whistling sound that characterizes wheezing occurs when air moves through airways that are narrowed, much like they way a whistle or flute makes music. In asthma, this airway narrowing is due to inflammation and spasm of the muscles in the wall of the airways.

Wheezing is usually the result of one of the following health problems:

• Asthma
• Allergic reactions to pollen, chemicals, pet dander, dust, foods or insect stings
• Acute or chronic bronchitis, which can produce excess mucus in the respiratory tract and cause the lungs' passageways to become blocked

Less commonly, wheezing may also  be caused by these health problems:

• Cystic fibrosis
• Obstruction from a foreign body which has been inhaled (such as a coin)
• A tumor in the lungs (rare in non-smokers)
• Congestive heart failure (usually in older adults)