Asthma Medicines - The Key To Treatment

By editor | August 7, 2007

Control of airway inflammation is the key to successful asthma treatment. To control inflammation in the lungs, there are two main things to do:

First, control your child’s environment the best you can. Exposure to viral infections or colds is inevitable among children (although good frequent hand washing can help prevent the spread of colds). But many allergy and irritant triggers can be controlled effectively. Please remember: controlling these triggers may help reduce the need for medicine.

Second, use controller or anti-inflammatory medicines. Based on the pattern of your child’s asthma symptoms, your physician or nurse practitioner may prescribe daily medicine to keep the asthma under control. The minimum effective doses and the safest medicines will be tailored specifically for your child.

Treatment Goals

If you work toward these two goals, you can learn and achieve the important tasks for successful asthma care:

  1. Your child should reach a “baseline,” a period of time in which no symptoms appear. Between flares, your child should have normal lung function and no symptoms.
  2. You and your child can effectively control flares by learning when and how to treat symptoms as soon as they appear. The goal is to decrease three things: the number of flares, the severity of symptoms during the flares, and the length of time your child is sick. This will mean less lost sleep for child and parent and less down time from school and work.

For the moment, just keep in mind that the keys to controlling asthma are sticking with such plans and recognizing new flares at their very beginning. If you do so, the number of flares will decrease, and they will be easier to get through.

Asthma Medicines

Today a large array of safe, effective medicines are available to control asthma and treat flares. Two basic types of medicines are used to control asthma:

Controller medicines provide long-term control of asthma by decreasing lung inflammation and its symptoms. The classic example is a steroid inhaler. Controller medicines are given regularly, usually on a daily basis, to prevent symptoms and flares. They do not bring immediate relief from symptoms and are not intended to do so.

Quick-relief medicines are taken when symptoms like cough and shortness of breath first appear. The classic example of this type is albuterol or related medicines (Maxair or Xopenex). These medicines treat asthma symptoms but do not decrease airway inflammation. In other words, they only treat the symptoms but not the cause of asthma. However, they are very effective when asthma symptoms get worse.

If a child needs quick-relief medicine on a regular basis, you can conclude that airway inflammation is out of control. Asthma specialists today believe that if a child needs albuterol more than once a week or uses more than two canisters a year, his asthma is not under good control. Instead, daily anti-inflammatory medicines are needed to control the airway inflammation.

Once a child’s asthma is under good control with the right medicines, flares don’t have to occur at all.


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