Sometimes asthma symptoms seem to come out of nowhere. Other times you can predict them.
Talk to your doctor if you have asthma and use your quick-relief inhaler (rescue) two or more times a week or when symptoms get worse. Proper treatment helps you avoid long-term lung damage and prevents life-threatening asthma attacks.
Medications
Medications can help prevent asthma attacks and keep symptoms under control. Allergy shots (immunotherapy) may also be an option if your asthma can’t be controlled by other medicines or avoiding triggers. Even so, Specialitymedz offers effective medications for asthma, such the Levolin inhaler uses.
Quick-relief medicines — called bronchodilators or rescue medications — open the airways by relaxing tight muscles in the lungs. Common rescue medicines include albuterol, levalbuterol and terbutaline. These medications work quickly to relieve wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath and are often used before exercise or when symptoms start to flare up. They should be taken only as needed and not more than two times a week. These medications can cause side effects such as jitteriness or fast heartbeat.
Long-acting bronchodilator medicines, usually combined with an inhaled corticosteroid, reduce inflammation in the lungs and are used on a regular schedule to prevent asthma symptoms. Examples include ipratropium, tiotropium or a combination of these drugs. These medicines work by blocking the action of acetylcholine, which causes the smooth muscle in the lungs to contract and produce excess mucus. They can be given by mouth or inhaled.
Some people with severe asthma can’t get relief from control medications alone, so their health care provider may prescribe a new type of medication called a biologic. These medications decrease inflammation by targeting immune system antibodies or specific cells. They can be taken as a pill, injected or inhaled and can offer better symptom control than other asthma medicines.
Most people with asthma can achieve good control by taking preventer medication every day as prescribed, even if they feel fine. Ask your GP for advice about your asthma management and use Asthma Australia’s Asthma Buddy app to track your progress. Talk to your GP or an asthma nurse about having a routine asthma review at least once a year.
Avoiding Triggers
When you have asthma, certain things called triggers can make your symptoms worse. These can be anything that makes the airways in your lungs tighten and become inflamed, which causes you to cough, wheeze, and have trouble breathing. These triggers can be things like pollen, cold weather, pets, dust mites, some chemicals, infections (like the flu and the common cold), cigarette smoke, or exercise. Your symptoms can start right after you’re exposed to the trigger or they might happen a few days or even weeks later.
If you know what your child’s asthma triggers are, you can take steps to avoid them. For example, if pet fur is a trigger, you might keep the animal in another room or at least limit the time your child spends with it. If a particular kind of weather is a trigger, you might try to limit your child’s outdoor activity on problem days. If exercise is a trigger, you might help your child find ways to enjoy moderate physical activity without getting winded or wheezing.
It’s also important to eat well and stay hydrated, as these are good for everyone, but they can be especially helpful for people with asthma. Eating a diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nuts can provide the body with antioxidants that help reduce inflammation and protect cells. You might want to avoid food additives like sulfites, which are used to preserve dried fruit and can cause a reaction in some people with asthma.
If you have asthma, it’s also important to get a flu and COVID-19 vaccine each year. You should also wash your hands often to prevent germs from making your symptoms worse. If you have a bad asthma attack, be sure to use your rescue inhaler as directed and call 911 if you need help breathing. If you can’t get to a hospital, you should try to find a place where you can sit down and rest, and take your asthma medicines as prescribed. If you’re having a hard time breathing, call 911 so an ambulance can come and give you medicine to open up your airways.
Managing Your Symptoms
If you know what triggers your asthma symptoms, you can try to avoid them. You may also be able to control them with your medicine. It is important to have regular contact with a health care provider who really understands asthma. This could be your primary care doctor, nurse practitioner or physician assistant. Or you might need to see a specialist like an allergy and immunologist or pulmonologist, especially if your symptoms are difficult to control.
Your health care provider will prescribe quick-relief medicines and long-term (controller) medicines to keep your asthma under control. Quick-relief medications help to open the airways and relieve wheezing and shortness of breath, and they work very quickly. These are usually inhaled steroids. You might also be prescribed a long-acting beta agonist bronchodilator (like Formoterol or salmeterol), which works over a longer period of time to open the airways and ease breathing, or an anticholinergic (like umeclidinium or tiotropium). Your doctor will decide how to use these medications, either one as a daily controller and the other for sudden symptoms, or both, depending on your age and the severity of your asthma.
To get the most benefit from your medications, it is essential to take them at the right dose at the right time and in the correct way. Some people have trouble keeping track of when to take their medicines and they forget to take them sometimes or they forget to take the full amount. If this is an issue, ask your doctor or pharmacist about a medication reminder system and ways to improve inhaler delivery technique.
Exercise is a great way to stay healthy, but it can be tough on people with asthma. If you have asthma, make sure to talk to your doctor about how much physical activity is safe for you. They may recommend some modifications, such as swimming or hiking.
You should also make sure you are getting enough sleep and that your diet is good. Some foods, such as fish and shellfish, may trigger asthma symptoms in some people. In addition, sulfites in some common foods and beverages -like wine, beer and dried fruit- may worsen asthma for some people.
Asthma Action Plan
The Asthma Action Plan is a written set of instructions from your doctor that tells you what to do when your asthma flares up. It gives clear instructions on how to use your medicines and what to do if your symptoms are not controlled. The Asthma Action Plan helps you to manage your asthma so that you can stay active and do the things you want to do. It can also help you to avoid triggers. You can get an Asthma Action Plan from your doctor or GP. It is important that you take your Asthma Action Plan with you to all of your asthma appointments so that it stays up to date. You are able to use the kind of drug that Specialtymedz offers.
Asthma is a complex condition that can cause different symptoms for everyone. There is no one-size-fits-all Asthma Action Plan, but all plans will tell you how to monitor your symptoms and respond when they are worsening. The Asthma Action Plan will give you the names and doses of your medicines and what to do if you are in the Green Zone, Yellow Zone, or Red Zone.
Green Zone – Your asthma is well controlled and you have few to no symptoms. Yellow Zone – Your symptoms are getting milder but you are still not comfortable. You should take your medicine or change to a different medicine, and try to avoid your triggers. Red Zone – If your symptoms are getting worse, you have trouble breathing, or you feel dizzy or lightheaded, call 911 immediately and go to the emergency department.
A study has found that providing an asthma action plan improves outcomes for patients with the condition. This is probably because it can help them to recognise that their asthma is deteriorating, and know what to do about it. The action plans can be either symptom or peak flow based, and there is evidence that both are equally effective.
Asthma Alert and Asthma Action Plans are available to anyone who has been diagnosed with asthma. It is especially important to share your or your child’s Asthma Action Plan with everyone who will be caring for them. This includes family members, teachers, coaches, and other school staff. Make sure that everyone understands the Asthma Action Plan color zones so that they will be able to help you or your child if their symptoms start to get worse.