Asthma Treatment: An Introduction
You and your doctor together can decide about your
asthma treatment goals and what you need to do to control your asthma. Asthma treatment includes:
- Avoiding things that bring on your asthma symptoms or make symptoms worse. Doing so can reduce the amount of medicine you need to control your asthma. Allergy medicines and allergy shots, in some cases, may help your asthma.
- Using asthma medicines.
With proper asthma treatment, you should ideally have these results:
- Your asthma should be controlled
- You should be free of asthma symptoms
- You should have fewer attacks
- You should need to use short-acting bronchodilators less often
- You should be able to engage in normal activities without having symptoms.
Medications Used in Asthma Treatment
There are two main types of medicines for asthma treatment:
- Quick-relief asthma medications
- Long-term control medications.
Quick-Relief Asthma Medications
These medications are used only when needed for asthma treatment. One type of quick-relief medicine is a short-acting inhaled bronchodilator. Bronchodilators work by relaxing tightened muscles around the airways. They help open up airways quickly and ease breathing. They are sometimes called "rescue" or "relief" medicines because they can stop an
asthma attack. These medicines act quickly, but their effects only last for a short period of time.
You should take quick-relief medicines for asthma treatment when you first begin to feel asthma symptoms, such as coughing, wheezing, chest tightness, or shortness of breath. Anyone who has asthma should always have one of these inhalers handy in case of an attack. For severe attacks, your doctor may use steroids to treat the inflammation.
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