Asthma Healing

By monitoring the severity of your asthma symptoms using your peak flow meter and practicing self-management using your peak flow zones, you can live an active life free of asthma symptoms.

What Is an Asthma Action Plan?

An asthma action plan is a written plan developed by your doctor or asthma specialist to help you or another family member, including teenagers and children, manage asthma and prevent asthma attacks. The plan is designed to tell you or other family members what to do when there are changes in the severity of asthma symptoms and in peak flow numbers.

A peak flow meter is an inexpensive, portable, handheld device that is used to measure how well air moves out of your lungs. Measuring your peak flow using this meter is an important part of managing your asthma symptoms and preventing an asthma attack.

For optimal asthma relief, it’s important to take responsibility for self-care. With the help of your doctor, you can get the best asthma relief by checking your peak flow daily, developing an Asthma Action Plan with your doctor, keeping an asthma diary, avoiding asthma triggers, and using natural asthma therapies to help increase relaxation. Getting the best asthma relief means staying on top of your asthma triggers, signs and symptoms, and medications to prevent asthma problems.

Active. This one word defines 11-year-old Hannah. She's an avid young athlete competing provincially in both gymnastics and swimming. In addition, Hannah's involved in soccer and basketball teams at school and she loves 4-H.

Steroids (anti-inflammatory medications) such as prednisone can be used for asthma as well as other lung diseases. Prednisone and other steroids (inhaled, oral, injection) help calm airway inflammation in asthma.

An asthma nebulizer, also known as a breathing machine, changes asthma medication from a liquid to a mist, so that it can be more easily inhaled into the lungs. Home nebulizer therapy is particularly effective in delivering asthma medications to infants and small children and to anyone who is unable to use asthma inhalers with spacers.

One type of medication is used by almost all people with asthma: a bronchodilator. Short-acting bronchodilators are used only as needed as asthma “rescue” medications, while long-acting bronchodilators are used every day to control asthma.

The key treatments for most people with asthma are steroids and other anti-inflammatory drugs. Not only do steroids and anti-inflammatory drugs help people gain better asthma control, but these asthma drugs help to prevent asthma attacks.

Ever wonder if you're using an asthma inhaler properly? Do you puff and breathe, or breathe and puff with an asthma inhaler?

Asthma medication plays a key role in gaining good control of your asthma. Asthma is a chronic (lifelong) disease that involves inflammation of the airways superimposed with recurrent episodes of decreased airflow, mucus production, and cough. Choosing the proper asthma medication is crucial in avoiding asthma attacks and living an active life.

If you or a loved one has asthma, it’s important that you know about the most effective asthma treatments for short-term relief and long-term control. Understanding asthma treatments will enable you to work with your asthma doctor to confidently manage your asthma symptoms daily. When you do have an asthma attack or asthma symptoms, it’s important to know when to call your doctor or asthma specialist to prevent an asthma emergency. Be sure to read all the in-depth articles that link to topics within each of the following sections. By doing so, you will gain new insight into asthma and how it’s treated.

Has your doctor diagnosed you with asthma? Getting a proper asthma diagnosis is the first step to self-managing this chronic lung disease. After diagnosing your asthma, the doctor can prescribe the most-effective and safest asthma medications to treat your asthma symptoms so you can live an active and productive life.

Ever hear the term “bronchial asthma” and wonder what it means? When people talk about bronchial asthma, they are really talking about asthma, a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways that causes periodic “attacks” of coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, and chest tightness.

What Are the Symptoms?

Asthma symptoms include episodes of:

• Tightness or pressure in the chest.
• Shortness of breath.
• Wheezing (a high-pitched whistling sound that occurs when exhaling).
• Coughing, especially at night.

Q: I think that I’m allergic to molds. What can I do to avoid them?

Q: What's the best way to find out what I'm allergic to?

When asthma symptoms appear and are diagnosed in adults older than 20, it is typically known as adult-onset asthma.  Adult-onset asthma is more common in women than in men and is possibly related to allergies or allergic asthma. About half of adults who have asthma also have allergies. At other times, adult-onset asthma may be the result of commonplace substances in work (called occupational asthma) or home environments, and the asthma symptoms come on suddenly.

Q: My allergist says I'm allergic to mites; how do I avoid them?