Wheezing, Shortness of Breath

Wheezing is a whistling or squeaky sound in your chest when you breathe, especially when you exhale. It is one of the telltale signs of asthma.

Swelling or narrowing of your throat or the airways to your lungs can cause wheezing. It can also result in shortness of breath, because your lungs can’t hold as much air when they are affected by swelling or mucus buildup.

Although asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are most often associated with wheezing, an allergic reaction is another common cause of these symptoms.

Sometimes children experience wheezing, but it is not always a sign of asthma. A lung infection can create wheezing in children younger than 5. And wheezing and shortness of breath can sometimes be symptoms of a cold in children with a family history of allergies.  

Wheezing is often, but not always, related to an asthma attack. During an asthma attack, the airways become more narrow. At first, the person wheezes when breathing out, but as the attack gets worse, the wheezing might happen when breathing in. During a severe asthma attack, there might not be any wheezing because not enough air is moving through the airways.

Allergists are specialists in diagnosing and treating asthma and other allergic diseases. And allergists are specially trained to identify the factors that trigger asthma or allergies.

Asthma is sometimes hard to diagnose because it can look like other breathing problems, such as emphysema, bronchitis and lower respiratory infections. Some people with asthma do not realize they have it and are never treated. Sometimes the only symptom is a chronic cough, especially at night. In other cases, coughing or wheezing may occur only with exercise. Some people mistakenly think they have frequent bronchitis, since respiratory infections usually settle in the chest of people with asthma.

To diagnose asthma and distinguish it from other lung issues, allergists rely on the combination of a medical history and a thorough physical examination, including certain tests. The tests include spirometry (using an instrument that measures the air taken into and out of the lungs), peak flow monitoring (another measure of lung function), chest X-rays, and sometimes blood and allergy tests.