Will my child grow out of his or her asthma?

Will my child grow out of his or her asthma?

William Berger (Allergist and Immunologist) gives expert video advice on: How common is asthma in children?; Can the elderly get asthma? and more...

Most children don't outgrow their asthma, in fact if they're not properly treated, very often their asthma will get worse, especially when they get older. Many of my adult asthmatics actually have severe asthma because they weren't treated properly as children; they were in and out of the hospital all the time, and developed irreversible changes in their lungs that make them very susceptible to asthma attacks when they're older. So, if a child is going to get better when they have asthma, it's only going to be because they've been treated appropriately. The most common type of asthma that we see is allergic asthma, where people have other allergic problems such as eczema, dry itchy skin, or nasal problems (allergic rhinitis) and allergic asthma follows the progression that we call the allergic march; they just continue to have allergic symptoms. Those patients usually tend not to develop their asthma and have it into adulthood.