Is your work causing your asthma?
Often overlooked, a work-related cause means you could be cured

Asthma caused by dusts or fumes at work is called 'occupational asthma'.

An expert will probably have a good idea whether your job can cause asthma, and will help you to check whether it is causing yours.

All jobs which cause asthma involve some kind of dust, vapour or other fumes, although often the amount you breathe in is so small that people don't expect trouble.

The good news is that if your job is the cause of your asthma, your asthma will disappear when you stop breathing any of the dust or fumes which caused it, provided that you and your doctors have caught it early enough. Almost no other kind of asthma can be cured. Good reason to check the slightest possibility with an expert; you don't lose more than your time if your job is not the reason but you gain brilliantly if it is.

The bad news is that the longer you carry on with work which causes asthma, the more likely you are to carry on having permanent asthma even if you stop the work. You might carry on because no-one including yourself has noticed the connection with work, or because it seems impossible to change jobs. The penalty for your health is often severe if this happens.

Either way, finding out is vitally important for you.

It is also important to others. Usually when we find somebody whose job is the reason for their asthma, we also find that there are other people with asthma for the same reason at the same workplace and in the same industry and that no-one has noticed the connection in them.

But remember, even if your kind of work has caused asthma in other people, asthma is common and your asthma may just be the same kind which anybody can get. Wrongly blaming your job for your asthma is also bad. Why lose your job if it is harmless for you? If people think that the work caused asthma, the expense of improving working conditions may mean there will be fewer jobs or in some cases no jobs at all. Sadly and wrongly, a diagnosis of occupational asthma seems to put employers off employing you in the future. Alternatively, they may employ you, but under the legislation compelling them to employ some disabled people, with two bad results. One of these is that if you no longer have asthma you are wrongly labelled as disabled, and the other is that a job is denied to someone for whom this legislation was passed, a genuinely disabled person. The consequences of blaming the job falsely are serious too.

Because of the disadvantages of having a diagnosis of occupational asthma, some people avoid doing anything about it. The consequences may sometimes be tolerable, but can easily be utterly disastrous for you. It is NOT safe for you to make your own judgement about this without expert help. Our advice: despite the very real hardship which may face you when you have occupational asthma recognised, do follow expert medical advice. THERE IS A SERIOUS NEED FOR MUCH BETTER SUPPORT FOR PEOPLE WITH OCCUPATIONAL ASTHMA.

If you are in a trade union, seek its help at once, as soon as you suspect asthma due to work. The union staff will have access to legal advice which may be important for you, and will be able to help in other ways. You are also helping them to do their job of protecting their members from dangerous working conditions or unwise decisions.

If you are not in a trade union, and the likelihood of occupational asthma is either quite clearly obvious or confirmed by a specialist, you should seriously consider getting a legal adviser as well as a medical specialist, since you may have to make decisions which will have legal consequences for you later in a way you may not be able to predict. The lawyer should have experience of occupational health issues. In the UK, if you cannot afford a solicitor, try getting 'Legal Aid'. It would be reasonable for a solicitor to contact your specialist to help decide whether 'Legal Aid' is appropriate.

What should make you suspect your job could be the cause?

If your asthma always seems to get better at weekends or when you go on holiday, one explanation could be that something at work is causing it. Dusts and fumes in a wide range of occupations, from work with animals to the chemical and pharmaceutical industries can cause asthma. New causes are always cropping up, but here is a list of some of them.

• Flour (bakery workers)
• Soldering (fumes from resin in soldering flux: mainly in electronics workers)
• Polyurethane paints and plastic moulding
• Epoxy resin moulding
• Phthalates, e.g. in paints
• Some wood dusts
• Textile dyes (reactive dyes)
• Animal work; all mammals, but also insects
• Pharmaceutical industry (some drugs)
• Platinum refining
• Enzymes in washing detergents

Obviously, if your asthma is due to your work it should be possible to remove the cause. The fact that you have asthma from work means that others could also get it, so the discovery could help a lot of people. If you think this is a possibility you really need to see an expert on 'Occupational Asthma'.

The longer the diagnosis is delayed, the less good the result is likely to be in you. If it is discovered early, the result is usually a complete cure. But if it is discovered after years of working with the offending material, then it should get better when you no longer breathe it in, but you are very likely to be left with permanent asthma, mild or severe.

Often one of the best ways to check whether your asthma is related to your work is to get a breath meter called a 'Peak Flow meter' and to use it frequently during each day, workdays, weekends, and holidays. You will need the help of a specialist in occupational asthma to make sure you get the best out of this. If you are still at the work suspected of causing your asthma, starting a special form of Peak Flow chart is urgent. Once you move or are moved from this work, vital information may become unobtainable. You may lose out considerably. A move to other work, or even losing your job may be in your best interest. You really do need specialist advice quickly to avoid critical mistakes in important decisions. There are other ways too, depending on the suspected cause. In some cases there might be useful skin tests or blood tests, and in other cases such tests may be useless. The most important thing is to have a detailed interview with a doctor who is expert on occupational asthma; your story will usually be the most important single piece of information.

There are a very few people who fake having occupational asthma. This is usually easy for an expert doctor to discover. Just as well, because otherwise they would get wrong treatment.

Asthma is so common that most people with asthma in a workplace have it for the same reasons as everybody else, and not because of the job. This makes it harder to discover the few people who do have occupational asthma. If there is any doubt, check it out with a specialist.

Sometimes we think someone has occupational asthma, but we cannot prove it. This is very frustrating , but a fact of life. Successful proof becomes much easier if the cause is a well-known one or if several workers are affected. The difficulty usually arises when only one person with possible work-related asthma can be found, when the condition is mild, when the suspected cause is unusual or perhaps even unique, and when the sufferer, perhaps through fear or nervousness, is not able to help the doctors as well as some people can.

The law of your country may make special provision for asthma caused by your work.

In the UK occupational asthma is a 'prescribed industrial disease'. This means that it is recognised by the government as a defined industrial illness, and that you are entitled to some (inadequate) compensation from the government if the diagnosis is confirmed in you. In practice, the amount paid under this arrangement is usually much smaller than the amount people lose in earnings through getting occupational asthma. But of course if you did nothing and stayed in the job causing your asthma you would end up immeasurably worse off because of the disastrous effect that would have on your health.
The message for you is once more that if there is any possibility that your asthma is caused by your job, you should get this checked at the very earliest opportunity by a specialist in occupational asthma, and that as soon as the suspicion is confirmed you must cease to be exposed to the dust or fumes which caused the asthma, even if that means becoming unemployed.
Small as the payment may be, it is a form of recognition of your condition by the government, and this helps others through highlighting the problem and acting as a spur to preventing the problem in future.
If you have occupational asthma, this fact must be notified to the Employment Medical Advisory Service, a government agency.

Smoking seems to make it more likely that you will get occupational asthma of most types.

The main points: if you think your work might possibly be causing your asthma, talk to your family doctor. Expect a specialist appointment if there is any doubt or if it seems likely. Inform your employer. Keep a peak flow chart (see above). Before seeing the specialist, try to find out the exact name of any substance at work which might be the cause if it is something unfamiliar in daily life, e.g. the precise type of paint or plastic.