What Are the Signs and Symptoms of Asthma?

Common asthma symptoms include:

• Coughing. Coughing from asthma is often worse at night or early in the morning, making it hard to sleep.
• Wheezing. Wheezing is a whistling or squeaky sound when you breathe.
• Chest tightness. This can feel like something is squeezing or sitting on your chest.
• Shortness of breath. Some people say they can't catch their breath, or they feel breathless or out of breath. You may feel like you can't get enough air in or out of your lungs.
• Faster breathing or noisy breathing.

Not all people have these symptoms, and symptoms may vary from one asthma attack to another. Symptoms can differ in how severe they are: Sometimes symptoms can be mildly annoying, other times they can be serious enough to make you stop what you are doing, and sometimes symptoms can be so serious that they are life threatening.

Symptoms also differ in how often they occur. Some people with asthma have symptoms only once every few months, others have symptoms every week, and still other people have symptoms every day. With proper treatment, however, most people with asthma can expect to have few or no symptoms.