Is this an asthma attack?

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum and have a question, if anyone can answer it! I was diagnosed with asthma about 5 years ago now (though I believe I probably had it longer than that. I play the clarinet, and so my normal peak flow is high, when they measure it at the doctor, normal for everyone else is probably low for me! Was eventually diagnosed by doing the test where they get you to take lots of ventolin and then retest the peak flow). First diagnosed as exercise enduced mild asthma. However, it seems to be getting worse.

Last night I had a major coughing fit. I get into a cycle sometimes where I cough, there is loads of plegm, feels like it's in the middle of the chest, and breathing in through the plegm seems to make me cough again. I find I can't catch my breath. Does anyone else experience this? Is it part of asthma or just the ends of the cold I've had? I felt breathless, and at one point panicky, but I think this was more to do with the fact I couldn't catch my breath. Eventually 4 or 5 puffs of ventolin (taken over about half an hour) seemed to relieve it and I went to sleep. Sometimes I just don't know what's normal, and what's asthma!

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This is exactly the same as what I suffered from recently. I'd usually say my asthma was very mild but recently I've had those symptoms. I thought it was just a reaction to dust but it got to the point where I could not catch my breath at all, kept coughing up yuck, and ventolin wasn't helping at all. I then went into full panic because I couldn't breathe and ended up in hospital for the night. So I would say it probably is asthma, but if you can control it with ventolin it may just be worth checking with a doctor about if you should change your medication or anything.

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Thanks Rabbiter for the reply. I've made an appointment with the asthma nurse, and going to see how it goes in the mean time. It was better again last night, still coughing, but I didn't wake up in the night coughing, which is a good sign.