asthma and autoimmune syndrome

I am 64 and suffer from late-onset asthama which I have endured for at least 7 years. After a very bad bout of bronchitis followed by weeks of asthma, I finally began to think about why I cannot stop coughing. I have reviewed the stuff on the web, and there is clearly controversy about this, but I do wonder if asthma is not an auto immune disease. My reasons for this are: a) it seems to get worse rather than better; b) my body seems to create more mucus the more I cough, which suggests that the very act of coughing stimulates the production of mucus; c) many children who suffer from asmtha apparently grow out of it, which suggests that their immune systems learns to deal with it. I would welcome informed medical opinion on this train of thought.

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Well, obviously here is not the place to go for informed medical opinion! A lot of us are quite well informed patients but there aren't a lot of doctors on here!!

I think a lot of people consider asthma to be a symptom of something else, and a lot of people would describe it as issues with the immune system (I guess any kind of hyper responsiveness is an immune system in overdrive!) but in practice - would it make that much difference in management? Very severe as a can be treated with chemo-type drugs, which will obviously affect the immune system, however these drugs are going to have a much nastier side effect profile than he more usual asthma drugs, and so are still unlikely to become front-line treatment. Asthma is a disease primarily consisting of inflammation, and this will always be first treated with the use of steroids (even if it is caused by autoimmune problems)

Asthma does often improve on the right treatment (and as you have pointed out: growing out of it is not uncommon) so don't feel hopeless in that respect