'acute bronchial asthma flare up'

hi,

im new to this website and to the condition of an 'acute bronchial asthma flare up'. Im currently more shocked than anything else. My process of asthma diagonsis was not easy took a lot of bouts of chesty colds and trips to A&E hyperventilating. My story im afraid is long and i need some advice.

First i was given salbutmol and the regular aerosol brown inhaler - this made my condition worse then i was diagnoised with hayfever related asthma and given qvar and my beloved bircanyl turbohaler. This worked like magic for a few months. However Qvar seemed to still allow me to have attacks but the bircanyl works like magic. I did go back and did a spirometry and ECG test both results were fine and the spirometry showed nothing inconclusive and in my error i decided not to let my doctors know this Qvar not working, and left it like this for a year or two.

In feb 2008 when it snowed i had a mild asthma flare up with sinsitus this time for first time ever. At the time where a lot of viral infections going on so i ignored it again not knowing or thinking its asthma. I went to my GP who gave me a course of amoxcyciline this seems to work however my nightmare began in 2009.

I started having frequent bouts of asthma flare ups and thought it was weird not one GP (i have a GP practice where there is a wide number of GP's and i sadly never see the same one twice) ever mentioned the severity. I spent the most of 2009 running to the GP until one finally took me seriously in december when i could not breathe and the only part of my head which was not infected was my eyes! - I was given a nice cocktail to of medication including antibiotics, singlair, symbicort and nasal sprays and betnesol and i had rhinitis at this stage. Oh and i also sported a operatic bronchial cough!

This worked till now im in my second round of what my doctors are classiying severe asthma and acute bronchial asthma flare up. I have had a rocky road journey to getting the right inhalers and currently on pred and antibiotics.

What i need to know is, are flare ups in asthma common? does my symptoms sound typically of asthma? I cant sleep well as aching ribs and continual coughing is keeping me up!

I'm suffering and puzzled that its taken me soo long to get this diagnoised seperatly from hayfever. I also need to research a lot more about this as its taken over my life, i cant sleep or breathe properly and im forever tired! Also whats the difference between COPD and athma? Please help!