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So there you are now, diagnosed with asthma. So what to do now? Where to
start? What should you do? Zillion questions may come to your mind. Here are a few things you need to know.
Talk with your doctor
With him you'll find the best strategy to control your asthma, it's team
work that is about to begin, make sure you understand what he is asking you to do and how to do it. Do not hesitate to ask
questions and to make an appointment if things are not 100% ok.
Inhalers
Make sure you use your device correctly, misused the medicine doesn't work.
You can ask your doctor to teach you. There are a lot of different device out there, find the one youn find easier to use,
some people have lot's of problem using Metered Dose Inhaler (MDI) which is the most common one (spray form). If you find
it difficult to use ask your doctor another system, or buy a spacer (kids find it really helpful).
The 2 aspects of asthma treatement
Asthma treatment is based on two type of medicines, a anti inflamation
treatment, which is the long term part , is based on inhaled corticosteroids, you have to continue taking those even when
there are no symptoms. Asthma is for life so is the long term treatment, you may be able to reduce the among of med with time
and only if your doctor tells you so.
Those medicine comes in red brown or purple inhalers, those colors indicate
it's a slow action med. The most well know out there are "advair" "pulmicort" and "flovent" but others exist too.
The other part of your treatment is the emergency treatment, or how to
relief an attack when it occurs. for that you use another type of medicine called a bronchodilatator. It come come in a blue
inhaler, which indicates a fast acting medicine.
it's also called your rescue inhaler, you must take a puff or two, each
time you feel some symptoms, even mild ones.
It can also be take before doing some exercise if you have exercise induced
asthma.
The star brand is "Ventolin"
in some severe cases of asthma, your doctor may ask you to take oral corticosteroids
(Prednisone). Make sure you understand everything about those meds.
Keep an asthma diary
In wish you'll write everyday the amount of medicine you took, to help
you determines when your inhaler will be empty for example.
But not only, you can also use it to write down all your symptoms, when
you had an attack what was the trigger or the situation in which the attack was triggered.
If you use a peak flow to monitor yourself write the numbers in it.
Bring this diary to your docotr's appointment, it will help you both
know where you are going, and how your asthma is doing..
Also mention if you woke up during the night because of an attack, for
night attacks are a sign that your asthma is not under control.
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