In all honesty, the damaging effects of smoking probably seem small in the distant future when you're young. Problems with health resulting from inhaled cigarette smoke might only develop after years of smoking. However, if you suffer from asthma, one breath of smoke, whether you take a puff or breathe in someone else's smoke, your asthma symptoms could be triggered or worsen immediately, and could become more severe in the long run.

Asthma Triggered by Smoking

The smoke from tobacco products is made up of dangerous chemicals, such as carbon monoxide and formaldehyde, a chemical used to keep the frogs you dissect in biology class preserved. Those suffering from asthma are already vulnerable to reaction when exposed to several of these irritants. An asthma episode can be triggered by breathing in smoke. Your airway might swell and tighten, and the body could produce extra mucus, making it difficult to breathe with an obstructed and congested airway.

Non-smokers

While you may not be a smoker, you've probably come into contact with tobacco smoke before. Inhaling smoke form someone else's cigarette can be just as dangerous as if you were smoking it yourself. Basically, if you stand near a smoker, you're smoking as well. As a matter of fact, children who have smoking parents are at greater risk of developing a case of asthma, due to their increased sensitivity to airborne irritants from passive smoke.

Asthma and Smoking

Before smoking again, or letting your friends smoke next to you, remember what cigarette smoke can do to your asthma symptoms:

If you experiencing an asthma episode, symptoms can worsen when exposed to tobacco smoke.

Your inhaler medication may not work properly if you smoke. According to the American Lung Association, people who smoke and have asthma build up a tolerance against their inhaler medications.

After a violent asthma episode, the smoke from tobacco can prevent your condition from improving. A recent study observed children who had to be hospitalized because of their asthma. After being released from the hospital, the children whose parents smoked had more regular occurrences of symptoms than the kids whose homes were free from smoke.

Smoking Friends

You might be aware of the dangers of smoking when coupled with asthma, but it may be difficult to ask your friends not to smoke around you when they think nothing of it. The next time you choose to stay silent while your friends light up, keep this in mind: your friends are your friends for a reason. If they give you a hard time about your asthma, then they clearly don't know what an asthma episode experience is like. They don't know the feeling of breathing through a shrinking straw. Asthma might not seem like such a light subject after a description like that. If you start wheezing while your friends smoke next to you, don't try to cover it up. The friend that's smoking might not know that the smoke is troublesome. Basically, a good friend wouldn't smoke near you if he or she knew that it hurt you.