If you're one of the 25 million Americans who have asthma, you probably want to know if you're always going to be living with it. If you're a parent of one of the 7 million U.S. children with asthma, you probably want to know if your child might outgrow it. The short answer: That depends. Here's why.
Can Children Outgrow Asthma?
About half of all children with asthma start having symptoms before age five. However, it's hard to diagnose asthma in a child under age five. That's because the lung function tests that are most important for making the diagnosis are too hard for a young child to perform.
If you have a child with asthma symptoms, there is about a 50% chance your child will outgrow the symptoms. But there's also a 25% chance those symptoms will come back once the child is an adult. This means the chance of your child permanently outgrowing asthma is about 25%.
Read more: Can we really outgrow asthma?
