What is asthma?

Asthma is a chronic condition of the lungs, where the small airways in the lungs can become constricted or even smaller and get filled with mucus and become swollen, so it limits the amount of air that can go through the lungs and, thus you get less oxygen. With that, the symptoms can be chest tightness because you feel those airways constrict, shortness of breath, obviously, because there is less oxygen. The wheezing that sometimes you can hear, sometimes only a physician can hear, is when that air is trying to squeeze through those little airways. Sometimes in children, the symptoms can be much less dramatic. They just may cough. You don't think, "Oh, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough." You know, you're not thinking that it's asthma, but nighttime cough, particularly, in children. Sometimes, children just get less energy. They may be playing with their friends and just come in more tired. So the symptoms in children can be less, much less, dramatic than an adult, who can say, "Gosh, I feel really tight today," or, you know, "I hear that wheezing." So those are some different things between adults and children, but the kind of reason behind it is the same.