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Aims of asthma management No symptoms of asthma, including cough, wheezing, and breathlessness. Ability to sleep well through the night, with no waking due to wheezing or cough. No school absence due to asthma. A normal lifestyle, including particiaption in all activities including sports. No medicine side effects. No emergency doctor visits or hospital admissions.

Asthma Treatment Overview

"Your Asthma Can Be Controlled:
Expect Nothing Less"

(National Heart Lung and Blood Institute
asthma workbook for patients)

Asthma is a condition of the airways in which the airways react abnormally to everyday stimuli like smoke and dust, and become narrow, making breathing difficult.  We do not yet have a cure for asthma; we do our best to keep it under control, as with diseases like diabetes and hypertension.

The three essential strategies for controlling asthma are:

• Avoidance measures against known and unknown allergens.
• Taking antiinflamatory medicines to reduce the airway inflammation (controller drugs).
• Getting reliever treatment whenever an acute attack of asthma occurs.

Good asthma control aims at minimal use of reliever drugs.

It is important to be alert to the child's symptoms, and start or increase treatment at the first sign of worsening asthma.  In course of time, each child learns his or her particular triggers, and learns also to avoid them.

The child must herself learn to identify the early signs of an acute attack.  Many attacks can be stopped by starting treatment quickly.  A peak flow meter is a great help in the home monitoring of asthma.  It can warn of an impending attack even before symptoms start.  Children over the age of four years are usually able to use one.

Asthma treatment plans are useful.  Ask your doctor for two - one for regular, daily use, and one that contains instructions for dealing with an acute attack.  If the child goes to school, these plans must be carried, and the teachers must know about them.  Some schools do not allow children to take medication on their own.  A discussion with the staff can be very helpful.

The child must take her controller drugs regularly, even when she is feeling perfectly well.  The reliever medicines must be carried everywhere, for asthma often is sudden and unheralded.

Last revision: July 15, 2007

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