How To Control Asthma Attack

How To Take Asthma Medication Effectively

Taking medication regularly can be difficult. It can be easy to forget and many people dislike having to take medication, especially when they feel well and have no symptoms. But it is important to take your medication correctly and follow medical advice.Tips to help you take asthma medication include:

• Ask your health professional for written instructions on the role of each medicine as part of your asthma action plan. Include details on how, when and how much to take, and what to do if symptoms get worse.
• Know the side effects of your medication so that you know what is and isnt normal.
• Ask your doctor if your medication can be simplified. Such as using one device for all your medications.
• Ask for a device that you feel comfortable with. There are special aids for people who have trouble coordinating inhalers .
• Make sure you know how to use your devices correctly. Ask your doctor or health professional to check your technique.
• Create memory aids to remind yourself to take your asthma medication, such as before brushing your teeth in the morning and evening.

If you have any concerns, talk to your doctor, asthma educator or pharmacist.

How To Control Asthma

Last Updated: June 30, 2021References

This article was co-authored by Laura Marusinec, MD. Dr. Marusinec is a board certified Pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, where she is on the Clinical Practice Council. She received her M.D. from the Medical College of Wisconsin School of Medicine in 1995 and completed her residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Pediatrics in 1998. She is a member of the American Medical Writers Association and the Society for Pediatric Urgent Care.There are 16 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 98,760 times.

Asthma causes the airways in the lungs to narrow and become inflamed. This obstruction makes it difficult to breathe.XResearch source While there’s no cure, there are medical options, and with a doctor’s help you may notice fewer symptoms, visits to the doctor/emergency room, hospital stays, health care costs, and missed days from work or school.XTrustworthy SourceAmerican College of Allergy, Asthma, and ImmunologyNational professional organization of allergists, asthma specialists and immunologists that focuses on supporting and publishing researchGo to source

What Are The Signs Of A Severe Asthma Attack

Asthma may lead to a medical emergency.

Rescue inhalers can help you: otc inhalers

Seek medical help immediately for:

• Fast breathing with chest retractions
• Cyanosis which is tissue color changes on mucus membranes and fingertips or nail beds – the color appears grayish or whitish on darker skin tones and bluish on lighter skin tones
• Rapid movement of nostrils
• Ribs or stomach moving in and out deeply and rapidly
• Expanded chest that does not deflate when you exhale
• Infants with asthma who fail to respond to or recognize parents

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There Are Four Key Symptoms That You Should Monitor To Help You Keep Your Asthma Under Control:

• Daytime SymptomsHow often do you have asthma symptoms during the day, such as coughing, wheezing, chest tightness or shortness of breath?
• Nighttime SymptomsDo you wake up at night with asthma symptoms, such as coughing, wheezing, chest tightness or shortness of breath?
• Quick-Relief or Rescue Inhaler UseHow often do you use your quick-relief or rescue inhaler to relieve asthma symptoms?
• Activity LevelDo you have difficulty performing normal activities, such as walking, climbing stairs, daily chores or playing with the kids?

Follow Your Daily Treatment And Use The Asthma Action Plan

• Take your daily medicines to help minimize long-term damage and avoid asthma attacks.
• Check your peak flow regularly, if your doctor recommends it. This can help you know how well your lungs are working.
• Check your action plan to see what zone you are in.
• If you are in the green zone, keep taking your daily asthma medicines as prescribed.
• If you are in the yellow zone, you may be having or will soon have an asthma attack. You may or may not have any symptoms, but your lungs are not working as well as they should. Take the medicines listed in your action plan. If you stay in the yellow zone, your doctor may need to increase the dose or add a medicine.
• If you are in the red zone, follow your action plan and call your doctor. If you can’t get in touch with your doctor, go to the emergency department. 911 right away if you are having severe trouble breathing.

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Take Asthma Medications As Prescribed

Long-term asthma medications are designed to prevent symptoms and attacks. You need to take them every day, even if you donât have symptoms. Theyâll ease inflammation in your airways and keep your asthma under control, so itâs less likely to flare up. If side effects bother you, talk to your doctor about switching to another treatment.

What Asthma Treatment Options Are There

You have options to help manage your asthma. Your healthcare provider may prescribe medications to control symptoms. These include:

• Anti-inflammatory medicines: These medicines reduce swelling and mucus production in your airways. They make it easier for air to enter and exit your lungs. Your healthcare provider may prescribe them to take every day to control or prevent your symptoms.
• Bronchodilators: These medicines relax the muscles around your airways. The relaxed muscles let the airways move air. They also let mucus move more easily through the airways. These medicines relieve your symptoms when they happen.
• Biologic therapies for asthma when symptoms persist despite being on proper inhaler therapy.

You can take asthma medicines in several different ways. You may breathe in the medicines using a metered-dose inhaler, nebulizer or other inhaler. Your healthcare provider may prescribe oral medications that you swallow.

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What Are The Triggers

There are many different triggers for asthma attacks. Many asthmatics are well aware of their trigger points. However, they may not always be able to avoid them.

Pollen and pollution are increasingly responsible for triggering asthma. Many people find a worsening of their symptoms in Spring, combined with the onset of hay fever. There are many species of grasses, trees and weeds in the UK. Some people are particularly sensitive to some and do not react at all to others. There is also huge variation around the country as to when pollen is released. People can begin to suffer from hay fever as early as January. About 20% of people with hay fever are allergic to birch tree pollen and this, as well as oak and plane trees, are responsible for many unpleasant symptoms and can exacerbate asthma.

Grass pollens are the most common cause of hay fever and usually affect people in May, June and July.

Weed pollens usually release pollen from early spring to early autumn.

If you know pollen is a trigger for your asthma, speak to your GP or asthma nurse.

The Met Office issues really useful pollen advice.

• Shortness of breath
• Tightness in the chest
• Often people find it particularly difficult to breathe out and have an increase in sticky mucus and phlegm

Its important to note that not everyone will get all of these symptoms.

Create An Asthma Action Plan

For anyone who has asthma, an asthma action plan is essential for preventing symptoms that can progress to a full-on asthma attack. This is a written document you and your asthma doctor will develop together based on your asthma triggers, usual symptoms, peak flow readings, and what you should do at different stages of progressively worsening symptoms.

A typical asthma action plan uses the color coding of a traffic light and is divided into three zones.

In terms of prevention, the action plan will identify all of your known triggers and ways to avoid them. It also will list your medications and how you should be taking them.

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Contact Doctor During Office Hours

• Don’t have written asthma action plan from your doctor
• Use an inhaler, but don’t have a spacer
• Miss more than 1 day of school per month for asthma
• Asthma limits exercise or sports
• Asthma attacks wake child up from sleep
• Use more than 1 inhaler per month
• No asthma check-up in more than 1 year
• You have other questions or concerns

Heres How To Use An Inhaler

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Vaping And Lung Damage

• Talk with your teen about the dangers of vaping.
• Vaping can cause severe lung damage. It can become permanent.
• Vaping can even cause death .
• Vaping tobacco also causes nicotine addiction.
• For these reasons, the legal age to purchase vaping products is 21 in the US.
• Encourage your teen to not start vaping or to give it up.
• Warning: home-made or street-purchased vaping solutions are the most dangerous.

Why Have Your Asthma Symptoms Got Worse

Before your appointment, have a think about your symptoms and why you think theyve got worse. Itll help you and your GP to work out whats going on with your asthma.

Ask yourself these questions to help you:

Have I been taking my preventer inhaler every day?

Preventer medicines stop inflammation building up in your airways. But they can only do this if you take them every day.

If you stop taking them you wont have full protection. And your symptoms will come back.

Have you been taking yours every day? Or have you found it hard to get into a good routine?

Do I know the best way to take my inhalers?

Even if youve been taking an inhaler for years, its easy to slip into bad habits. If you havent been taking your inhaler correctly you will have been missing out on the full dose of asthma medicine.

Are you confident youre taking your inhalers in the right way? Watch our inhaler videos to see if youre doing it right. And ask your GP or asthma nurse to check it at your appointment.

Have I been around more of my usual asthma triggers?

Maybe youve caught a cold, or its pollen season and your hay fevers bad. Think about your usual triggers and if they might be affecting you more.

Have I come across a new trigger?

Have you been around an animal or pet? Did you start a new job, or go on holiday? Tell your doctor if youve spotted a new trigger. They can help you deal with it.

What else has been going on in my life lately?

Have I noticed hormonal changes?

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Healthy Tips And Diet For Asthma Patients

• Avoid cold and damp places.
• Go for morning and evening walk for at least 30 minutes.
• Avoid tobacco, wine, smoking, overeating.
• Keep rooms well ventilated.
• Avoid perfumes, incense sticks, mosquito repellants.
• Drink plenty of water is the best natural treatment of Asthma.
• Avoid excessive exercise and indulgence in sex.
• Eat foods with omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fish like salmon, sardines and some plant sources like, flaxseed- are believed to have a number of health benefits.
• Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables.
• Yoga improves the strength, flexibility, and capacity of the lungs, the three necessary components of overall fitness. Yoga therapy improves lung functions and reduces the frequency of exacerbations. It emphasizes conscious breathing and includes relaxation.
• Medication has beneficial effects on personality, emotions, and psyche. After medication, the asthmatic person can learn to come to a place of peace and stillness.
• Postures recommended for bronchial asthma are: Shirshasana, Dhanurasana, Chakarasana, Bhujangasana, Supta vajrasana are highly beneficial in asthma condition.
• Avoid reckless over-the-counter asthma medication as much as possible

Effective Ways To Treat Asthma At Home

In people with asthma, the airways become narrow and produce a lot of mucus. It triggers difficulty in breathing, wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath. Several factors can increase the risk of suffering from asthma. Some of the risk factors include having a blood relative with asthma, smoking, being overweight, and passive smoking. For some people, asthma doesnt pose many problems. However, there are others who suffer from asthma attacks.

Are you tired of having to latch on to your inhaler and your asthma medications? Do not let them go just yet. Make a few changes to your lifestyle see your symptoms ease up a lot.

10 Home Remedies for Asthma are:

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How Is Asthma Diagnosed

Your health care provider may use many tools to diagnose asthma:

• Physical exam
• Medical history
• Lung function tests, including spirometry, to test how well your lungs work
• Tests to measure how your airways react to specific exposures. During this test, you inhale different concentrations of allergens or medicines that may tighten the muscles in your airways. Spirometry is done before and after the test.
• Peak expiratory flow tests to measure how fast you can blow air out using maximum effort
• Fractional exhaled nitric oxide tests to measure levels of nitric oxide in your breath when you breathe out. High levels of nitric oxide may mean that your lungs are inflamed.
• Allergy skin or blood tests, if you have a history of allergies. These tests check which allergens cause a reaction from your immune system.

Side Effects Of Steroid Tablets

Oral steroids carry a risk if they are taken for more than three months or if they are taken frequently . Side effects can include:

• easy bruising
• muscle weakness

With the exception of increased appetite, which is very commonly experienced by people taking oral steroids, most of these unwanted effects are uncommon.

However, it is a good idea to keep an eye out for them regularly, especially side effects that are not immediately obvious, such as high blood pressure, thinning of the bones, diabetes and glaucoma.

You will need regular appointments to check for these.

Want to know more?

• Asthma UK: side effects of asthma medicines

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Ways To Treat And Control Asthma Naturally

Asthma is a chronic respiratory illness caused by the tightening of the bronchi, the passageways that air flows through in the lungs. Sufferers experience bad congestion that causes breathing difficulties, a chronic cough, wheezing, and other symptoms which reduce quality of life. In this article, well give you eight tips to treat and control asthma.

Although for some it might be a minor sporadic inconvenience, other people suffer from it chronically, and an asthma attack can put their life at risk.

Who suffers from it? How can you control asthma naturally? This illness can exhibit different levels of severity as time passes. Therefore, sufferers need to take good care of themselves to complement their treatment.

How Can I Prevent Asthma Flare

Asthma flare-ups can be handled, but it’s even better if you can prevent them from happening. To do that:

• Take asthma medicines as directed. If your doctor prescribed a long-term control medicine, take it each day, even when you feel fine. It needs to be taken exactly as your doctor tells you to keep protecting you against flare-ups.
• Get a flu shot each year before flu season starts.
• Avoid triggers. By knowing and avoiding your triggers, you might be able to prevent some flare-ups.

It’s important to plan ahead and know what to do. Work with your doctor to build and update your asthma action plan. That way, you know what to do if a flare-up happens and you’re in control if things get serious.

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Asthma Causes Coughing Difficulty In Breathing Tightness In The Chest And Wheezing Usually Stress Or Allergies Are The Reason Behind An Asthma Attack Here Are Some Yoga Asanas For Asthma Relief

Asthma is an inflammatory disease that causes difficulty in breathing, coughing, tightness in the chest, wheezing and bronchospasm. Caused by environmental and genetic factors, asthma is a long term condition in which the airways of the lungs become swollen and inflamed. Working out can give you relief from asthma but physical activity can be a challenge for those suffering from the condition. In this case, yoga is the perfect solution. Yoga, which is performed at a slower pace, will not only relieve the symptoms of asthma but will also make your lungs strong and healthy. Here are some yoga asanas to relieve asthma.Also Read âFacing Air Pollution Related Issues? GNIDA Issues THESE Helpline Number to Report Complaints Through Calls, WhatsApp

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How To Control Asthma Attacks Without An Inhaler At Hand

Asthma is most commonly defined as a chronic condition, implying that a person with asthma needs to continuously monitor and control it over their lifetime. What causes asthma attacks is yet to be fully determined, and there currently exists no cure. On the bright side, there are many measures that you can take to effectively control your asthma. Living a life free of asthma symptoms and asthma attacks is

possible if you have a profound understanding of your asthma, including its symptoms, triggers, precautions, medications, and management to achieve control over your asthma. You should always be ready to take responsibility, be proactive when your asthma is not in control, and be prepared for the unpredictable asthma attack.

The following are some of the things you can do to help you control your asthma in a better way

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