Understanding the Root of the Problem

Late-Onset Asthma Usually Caused by Infection

If you were in good health and suddenly developed coughing and wheezing and you went to the doctor, the odds are overwhelming that you would be diagnosed with an infection called Bronchitis and given antibiotics. However, if the antibiotics did not clear up your cough in a week or two, your doctor would then probably diagnose late-onset asthma, tell you that you are allergic and send you to an allergist. Your allergist, or chest specialist would then prescribe either Cortisone pills or inhalers and you would get better, but you would not be cured, and the odds are that you would spend the rest of your life with an incurable disease called late-onset asthma. Chances are that, over time, your asthma would worsen and you would end up taking cortisone-type pills and probably die prematurely with your disease.

Late-onset asthma is usually not caused by allergies and cannot be improved by taking allergy shots. Richard Martin of the National Jewish Hospital in Denver reports that he has successfully treated symptoms in people diagnosed with late-onset asthma and who grew mycoplasma or chlamydia out of their lungs. This is very exciting, but until recently, asthma that develops after puberty has been considered an incurable disease. Fifty-five subjects with chronic, stable asthma had PCR cultures for chlamydia and mycoplasma, 31 out of the 55 grew chlamydia and mycoplasma from their lungs and these people were treated with clarithromycin, 500 twice a day for 6 weeks. The vast majority improved by every measurable variable.

The Journal of the American Medical Association reviewed articles showing that asthma that starts after puberty can be caused by an infection. Mycoplasma, chlamydia and ureaplasma are bacteria that are unique because they live inside of cells and are extraordinarily difficult to grow in culture media in the Laboratory and therefore are extremely difficult to find with routine culture techniques.