Nocturnal Asthma Can Cause Daytime Sleepiness!

Suffering with nocturnal asthma? Nocturnal asthma occurs at night when you are sleeping.

You will get asthma attacks between midnight and early morning.

The pulmonary lung functions will be at lowest level in between these timings.

The reason is cortisol and epinephrine circulating blood levels, which protect you against asthma, will be at lowest levels.

Nocturnal asthma occurs due to your body’s circadian rhythms (Circadian Rhythm Disorders). If you have heartburn, lying down can make heartburn and asthma symptoms worse.

If you get nocturnal asthma regularly, it indicates that you have severe asthma condition. When you have nocturnal asthma, you will be awakening during the night. Once you are awakened, your sleep will be disturbed and can result in daytime sleepiness.

Causes of nocturnal asthma! One of the causes of nocturnal asthma is if a person works at night and sleeps during the day, he suffers more likely nocturnal asthma in daytime.

The other reason is melatonin, which enhances the allergic airway inflammation making nocturnal asthma attacks more likely.

The other causes of asthma at nighttime include pollen, dust mites, pet dander, and cockroach debris. Exposing to dust mites in the bedroom during nighttime is one of the main causes of nocturnal asthma.

Airway cooling from a drop in body temperature, decrease effect of medicines during early morning hours and chronic sinus problems can also cause asthma at nighttime.

Symptoms at nighttime will be common if you have daytime asthma. It can occur once in a while or more often during the week. If you have nocturnal asthma, your airways consist of more number of eosinophils compared with people who have asthma during daytime.

When your doctor understands about the causes of nocturnal asthma, he or she can prescribe medications based on your condition.

It is impossible to completely prevent nocturnal asthma. Proper treatment and right medicines can reduce the symptoms.

Nocturnal asthma prevention methods:

• Make your bedroom free of allergens. Clean your bedroom by removing dust and carpets. Mattresses and pillows should be covered with allergy-proof covers.
• Keep your pets out of bedroom as the pet dander stick to the bed sheets and when you go to sleep, the dander can cause allergy and asthma.
• Use humidifier in the house to keep the air warm and moist. The humidifier helps in maintaining the body temperature normal and avoids falling too low.
• Wash the bed sheets and covers every week in hot water which you are using on the bed.
• If you are having nocturnal asthma, you should talk to the health care professional about taking care of heartburn and GERD (Know more about GERD).
• During daytime, cover the entire bed with a bed sheet and at night, remove the covered bed sheet and keep it in another room.

Following the above simple steps can prevent nocturnal asthma attacks.