For children over the age of 5 years and adults:

Only your doctor can decide if your breathing problems are due to asthma. Your doctor will:

• Take a detailed medical history. You will be asked questions about you and your family’s health histories and your breathing problems.
• Do a physical examination. This may include listening to your lungs and looking inside your nose.
• Test your breathing by using spirometry. Spirometry is a quick, simple breathing test that measures how much air you can blow out of your lungs. For this test, you will be asked to blow fast and hard through a tube attached to a small machine. The machine will show how much air you can push out of your lungs and how fast. Because spirometry takes some coordination, children under five years old are not usually asked to do this test.

Your doctor may order other tests:

• chest x-ray and lab tests.
• allergy tests: Your doctor may refer you to an allergist. The allergist will test for specific allergies, ask what your symptoms are and when you notice them. Usually a “skin prick” test is used to help find out what allergies make your asthma worse.
• challenge tests: These tests are done in a hospital. They help to tell the doctor how “twitchy” your airways are.

For children 5 years of age and younger:

Because children five years of age and younger are not able to have a breathing test done that would confirm an asthma diagnosis, the doctor may use the following to determine if the child may have asthma:

• has the child had a severe episode of wheezing or difficulty breathing?
• has the child had wheezing or difficulty breathing after the age of one year?
• has the child had three or more episodes of wheezing?
• does the child have a persistent cough, especially at night or with activity?
• does the child’s cough or wheeze clear up when anti-asthma medications are used?