Asthma

Asthma is a disease that inflames and narrows the airways of your lungs.  Asthma causes different types of symptoms that can worsen at any time, making breathing difficult.  Wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath and coughing are common.  In order to make a proper diagnosis of asthma, your doctor will need to physically exam you and then test your lung function.

Lung function tests may include the following:  

Spirometry	Test estimates the narrowing of your bronchial tubes by checking how much air you can exhale
Peak flow	A peak flow meter is a device that measures how hard you can breathe out

 Four Degrees of Asthma:

Mild	Symptoms no more than 2 days a week and up to 2 nights a month
Mild persistent	Symptoms more than 2 times a week, but no more than one time in a day
Moderate persistent	Symptoms once a day and more than 1 night a week.  Daily use of inhaler.  Exacerbations that limit activity
Severe persistent	Symptoms throughout the day on most days and frequently at night.  Limited physical activity.

Long-term Prednisone usage is a strong sign of severe asthma.  Prednisone can have serious long term side effects.  One of the key issues for these cases is how many times in one year have you been hospitalized for an asthma attack.  The Social Security Administration  will look very closely at the frequency of hospitalizations.  The reason for this is that with a typical asthma attack, a person is completely incapacitated and even for a period of time after the attack.  Therefore the details of the impairment need to be brought out at the social security disability hearing.  An inpatient hospital admission lasting more than 24 hours counts as two attacks.  Three hospital admissions for asthma in a year are enough to present an extremely strong case for disability.   If you are using a misting machine then you should bring the machine to the social security disability hearing for the judge to see.   Please remember that you will need to tell the judge about the triggers for your asthma during your Social Security Disability hearing.