Asthma is a chronic breathing disease, but it can be controlled. The symptoms of Asthma that signal an attack are:
• Wheezing, mostly during exhalation
• Breathlessness and chest tightness
• Coughing
• Difficulty in speaking
Without treatment, the disease can be fatal. Note that there are different treatments for kids and adults. Pregnant women and older adults should talk to their physicians before taking conventional medicine to reduce the risk of complications.
Treatment of Asthma in children
1) Controller Asthma meds: These medicines are also called preventative asthma medicine and they are taken daily to prevent attacks. They include Advair, Foradil, Serevent Diskus and other long-acting beta2 agonists, Zyflo, Singulair and other Leukotriene receptor antagonists, Xolair injections for children, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory controllers such as Tilade and Intal.
2) Quick relief Asthma meds: These medicines are also called rescue medicines and they are taken to provide relief. They are given with a metered or a nebulizer dose inhaler and they include Atrovent, Terbutaline, Pirbuterol which is a breath-actuated metered inhaler, Albuterol, and Levaluterol.
3) Children can also be given oral steroids to treat Asthma. The ideal oral steroids are prednisone for older kids taken as pillsand prednisolone for younger kids taken as syrup.
Treatment of Asthma in adults
In adults, doctors usually use a stepwise approach in Asthma treatment. If a particular cure or dose does not work, he/she will prescribe another.
1) The most common treatment used is inhaled corticosteroids and this is for long-term control of the condition. Other long-term control meds are inhaled long-acting beta2-agonists, Theophylline, Leukotriene modifiers such as montelukast, zafirlukast, and zileuton, and Cromolyn and nedocromil to decrease the activity of allergy cells.
2) For quick-relief, doctors usually use inhaled short-acting beta2-agonists such as Albuterol which goes by the brand names Ventolin, Proventil, and ProAir.
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