Symptoms of an asthma exacerbation

Symptoms may intensify suddenly or creep up over hours or days. Needing prescribed reliever medicine more often than your action plan allows, getting less relief from it, or struggling with tasks that are normally easy can indicate worsening control even before breathing looks severe.

Cough may become more frequent or disturb sleep. Wheezing can be heard during breathing out, while chest tightness may feel like pressure or restriction. Breathlessness may appear with walking, talking or resting. Not everyone wheezes, so judge the whole pattern against the person's usual asthma symptoms and action plan.

In children, clues can include unusual quietness, tiring during play, difficulty feeding, persistent coughing or visible pulling in around the ribs. These signs deserve prompt attention because a child may not describe breathlessness clearly.

Start the steps in the personalised asthma action plan, use prescribed reliever medicine exactly as directed, sit upright and leave an obvious trigger if safe. Keep the inhaler and spacer available. Watch whether breathing effort, speech, alertness and response to medicine improve or deteriorate.

Contact a clinician promptly if symptoms keep returning, disturb sleep, restrict usual activity or require more reliever treatment than the plan specifies. Record the onset, possible trigger and medicines taken, but never delay urgent help to complete a symptom diary.

Call emergency services for severe or rapidly worsening breathlessness, difficulty speaking in full sentences, blue or grey lips, confusion, pronounced drowsiness, exhaustion, collapse, or prescribed reliever medicine that fails to help as expected. A very quiet chest in someone working hard to breathe can signal severely limited airflow and also requires emergency care.

Ask which changes count as your earliest warning signs, how your written plan defines worsening symptoms, and what response should follow each change. Confirm correct inhaler and spacer technique and what to do if reliever medicine gives incomplete or short-lived relief.