Asthma is a respiratory disorder that affects the lungs' airways, which are the tubes that carry air in and out of your lungs. These airways get inflamed in a person with asthma and may produce extra mucus in the lungs. They have difficulty breathing, which triggers coughing and wheezing, along with shortness of breath. When these symptoms get worse, it may result in an asthma attack. There is no complete cure for asthma, but its symptoms can be controlled with treatment to avoid such flare-ups. Read on to learn more about asthma treatment.
Treatment of Asthma
The aim of treating asthma patients is:
- To control airway tube swelling that causes blockage and inflammation.
- To avoid exposure to asthma triggers
- Help you perform normal activities without having asthma symptoms
Asthma Treatment Involves:
There are two kinds of medicines for treating asthma that will help prevent asthma attacks. It includes:
1. Long-term medicines: These medicines are used daily to avoid moderate to severe asthma attack in daily life. These medicines contain steroids which are inhaled orally by patients every day, even if they do no exhibit any symptoms, to avoid sudden attacks. These medicines include:
- Inhaled corticosteroids: These medications include fluticasone propionate, budesonide, ciclesonide, beclomethasone, mometasone, and fluticasone furoate, which can be used for several days to weeks, and have a low risk of major side effects.
- Leukotriene modifiers: These include oral medications, mainly montelukast, zafirlukast and zileuton, which help to relieve asthma symptoms. Some medicines like montelukast may have psychological effects, like agitation, aggression, hallucinations and depression. So, seeking medical advice from a doctor before starting any medicines is advisable to avoid such reactions.
- Combination inhalers: These medications include a combination of drugs containing a long-acting beta-agonist and a corticosteroid. The combination drugs are fluticasone-salmeterol, budesonide-formoterol, formoterol-mometasone and fluticasone furoate-vilanterol.
- Theophylline: It is a medicine that can be used daily to help keep the airways open by relaxing the muscles around the airways.
2. Quick-relief medicines
These medicines are called rescue medicines to prevent coughing, wheezing or asthma attacks in patients. These medicines include short-acting inhaled bronchodilators and oral corticosteroids to avoid severe asthma attacks. If you experience a severe asthma attack, then you will need a hospital stay where the doctor will give you oxygen, breathing assistance, and some quick relief medicines intravenously (IV).
This technique is done to treat severe cases of asthma where the treatment belonging to inhaled corticosteroids or other long-term asthma medications fails to treat a patient. This technique is not widely available or right for everyone as this treatment involves the heating of the airways in the lungs with an electrode to reduce the smooth muscle inside the airways.