Asthma Asthma Treatment

Treating and Controlling Your Asthma

So you've got asthma. There's a lot you should know about managing this condition. First, the bad news: there is no cure for asthma. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here's the good news: asthma can be controlled and it should not stop you from leading a full and active life. People with asthma are in every profession; some are even Olympic athletes. The trick is to learn to control your asthma so that it doesn't interfere with your life.

The first step in controlling your asthma is to figure out what makes it worse. Most people are affected by one or more of the following asthma triggers: dust, cigarette smoke, molds (found in damp areas such as the basement) and pets (especially cats and dogs). If you are allergic to cats, all the medication in the world won't make your asthma better if your cat is constantly swishing his/her tail in your face. Other people's asthma is made worse by certain foods or medications, such as aspirin and related drugs (Tylenol is OK). Learning your asthma "triggers" and avoiding them is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your asthma symptoms.

Medical Treatments for Asthma
There are two basic types of medications for asthma: relievers and controllers.

Reliever medications
The first are the reliever medications, the most common of which is albuterol (a.k.a. Proventil or Ventolin). Others include pirbuterol (Maxair) and Atrovent (a.k.a. ipratropium). Patients breathe these medications into their lungs by using special devices called inhalers (described below). The purpose of these drugs is to reverse the narrowing of the airways that occurs during an attack. However, since these medications are all very short acting and do not do anything to reverse the underlying problem in asthma, they should be used in conjunction with other medications (except in very mild cases). A general rule of thumb is that if you need to use your reliever medication more than twice a week during the day or twice a month at night, you need a controller for your asthma. Most experts now agree that reliever medications should only be taken when needed, and not on a regular basis.

There are two important issues to keep in mind if you use a reliever:

Your body tends to get used to these medicines so that their effect may be diminished over time. People who use their reliever medications frequently also tend to underestimate the severity of their disease, which could lead to problems down the road because of a false sense of security.

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