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Occupational Asthma
For thousands of people across the UK facing the challenges of asthma is part of everyday life and 1,500 to 3,000 people are developing asthma every year due to the conditions that they are working in. This is said to cost society 1.1 billion over the next ten years.
Asthma is a serious health problem and is sadly continuing to be linked to occupations. Some of the symptoms that you may be facing if you are dealing with occupational asthma include having a severe shortness of breath that can stop you from doing the simplest of tasks such as carrying you’re shopping or walking up the stairs. Other symptoms include:
- Wheezing
- Coughing
- Chest tightness
These symptoms can develop straight after leaving your place of work or they will not start to appear until several hours later, which make’s linking your illness to your occupation difficult. Your symptoms will however start to improve when you have been away from work for several days.
People who work as the following are potentially at risk of developing asthma:
- Bakers
- Vehicle spray painters
- Woodworkers
- Healthcare workers
- Laboratory animal workers
- Agriculture workers
- Engineering workers
This is because if you are working in an environment where you are exposed to flour, dust, chlorine or even merely cold air you are at risk or developing occupation asthma. Substances such as these are known as respiratory sensitisers or asthmagens and they can cause a change in people’s airways causing what it known as a hypersensitive state. Not everyone in the state goes on to get asthma but once the lungs become hypersensitive, further exposure to the substance, even at quite low levels, may trigger occupational asthma.
If you suspect you are suffering from occupational asthma it is important that you go and see your doctor straight away so that. Also you may be entitled to claim for compensation.
Here at Accident Consultant we are personal injury specialists and can help you start a claim for compensation if you do discover that you are suffering from occupational asthma.
For more information contact Accident Consultant today and we will help you in anyway that we can to pursue your compensation claim.
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