Asthma is a medical condition that occurs when your airways swell, narrow and produce extra mucus. The condition can cause difficulty in breathing and it triggers wheezing, coughing as well as shortness of breath. The condition can be minor to some people but to others, it can be life-threatening and interferes with their daily activities.
Various factors can cause the disease and it cannot be cured but its symptoms can be managed. Often, the condition changes over time and can affect your general health. It is therefore, essential to work closely with your doctor to track and manage the symptoms.
Treatment
Treating the disease always involves getting to know what triggers it, taking possible steps to avoid the triggering factors and tracking your breathing system. Long term control and prevention are among the effective ways of managing the disease. In summary, the condition can be treated in two ways based on its seriousness and preference of the patient as guided by a qualified physician.
The type of medication that your doctor will offer you depends on the following factors: your age, asthma trigger, symptoms, health status and what works best for your control. Your medication can be long or short term medication. Long term medication helps in reducing the inflammation of your breathing pathways that lead to the development of symptoms. Short term medication helps you by quickly opening the swollen airways that are interfering with your breathing. Inhalers are mainly used.
Long Term Medications
Long term medications ensure that the disease is under control on a daily basis and they help you to heal and prevented from getting asthma completely. Such medications include:
- Inhaled Corticosteroids. They include anti-inflammatory drugs such as budesonide, fluticasone, beclomethasone, flunisolide among many other inhalers. They are safe to use and have few side effects.
- Leukotriene modifiers. They are oral medications that help relieve symptoms for 24 hours. They include zileuton, monteluukast and zafirlukast.
- Long-acting beta-agonists. They include beta inhaled medications such as salmeterol and formoterol. They help in opening the airways.
- Combined Inhalers. These medications contain corticosteroids along with acting beta-agonists. They include budesonide –formoterol, formoterol-mometasone among others.
Short Term Medications
- Short term medications are needed to provide relief of the symptoms that appear rapidly during an asthma-attack. The medications include
- Short-acting beta-agonists. They include inhaled drugs and bronchodilators such as levalbuterol and albuterol. You can take them using a hand machine (inhaler) or a nebulizer that converts the medications into a mist.
- Ipratropium. It is also called Atrovent and relaxes your airways to enable you to breathe easily.
- Intravenous and Oral Corticosteroids. They help in relieving inflammation of the airway, and the medications include methylprednisolone and prednisone. When you use them for long, they can cause side effects and affect your health.
Apart from the short and long-term medications, there are also allergy medications specifically for the asthmatic people. The medications include:
- Allergy shots. They help in reducing your immune system reaction to some allergens.
- Xolair. It is a specific injection for the asthmatic patients.