Asthma Treatment Goals

The good news is that you can avoid these problems. As with asthma during any time of life, proper treatment can help you, and your baby, stay healthy. With your asthma under control, you usually can expect:

- Fewer asthma symptoms, such as hard breathing, even at night

- No limits on moderate exercise or other activity appropriate during pregnancy

- Normal or near-normal tests of lung function

- Few or no asthma attacks

- No trips to the emergency room or hospital for asthma

- Easy use of medication with few side effects for you or your baby

- Delivery of a healthy baby

The key to achieving these goals is to create a personal asthma management plan for your pregnancy. Your obstetrician or nurse-midwife can help you understand how asthma can change during pregnancy. Your primary care provider can also help. Feel free to ask questions, gather information, and voice concerns. If you have severe asthma or allergic asthma, you also should see an asthma specialist during your pregnancy.

When you're pregnant, you need to consider carefully the three features of asthma management: triggers, medication, and monitoring.

Talking with your doctor

When you're at the doctor's office, do more than just listen. Ask questions. Be honest about any concerns you might have. Honesty with your doctor is essential. You're not the only person who thinks asthma is complicated or confusing. Researchers have spent years trying to unravel the mysteries of this condition, and they're still hard at work on these efforts. Knowledge about asthma changes rapidly, so it's not surprising that you may have questions.

Your doctor has treated other people who have asthma and won't be surprised to hear your questions. Maybe you've heard that asthma medications are dangerous. They aren't, and your doctor can tell you why. Perhaps someone told you that asthma is all in your head. It's not. Now's the time to ask questions and share any concerns you might have about your health.

Diagnosis Older Adults with Asthma

In older adults, asthma can be difficult to diagnose because its symptoms are similar to common conditions, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This general term describes a number of lung conditions (particularly chronic bronchitis and emphysema) in which your lungs gradually become less efficient at inhaling and exhaling air. In other words, your lungs don't function as well as they once did. Heart disease also may cause asthma-like symptoms.

Elderly adults with asthma may cough often, feel a sensation of tightness in the chest, feel out of breath, and wake up at night frequently. To diagnose asthma, a health care provider will do a physical examination, take a medical history, and perform one or several specific lung function tests. If a doctor is still uncertain, older adults might be asked to try an asthma medication. If symptoms respond, then asthma is probably the cause.

As for everyone with asthma, an asthma treatment plan involves avoiding asthma triggers, taking the right medication, and monitoring breathing.

Cough-Variant Asthma

Cough-variant asthma is common, especially in children. If you have cough-variant asthma, your main symptom is coughing, frequently at night. During the day, you feel fine and have no other symptoms. In fact, you may even find it hard to believe that your cough is asthma because you don't wheeze or have other typical asthma symptoms.

If you find you're not sleeping at night because you keep waking up coughing, you may have cough-variant asthma. Or, if you find that you are coughing during the day but do not have a cold or other illness, you may have cough-variant asthma. Your doctor may ask you to monitor your asthma using a peak-flow meter for two weeks. The goal of this monitoring period is to see how your breathing ability changes over time. A peak- flow meter can tell you whether your airways are narrowed.

Once your diagnosis is established, you and your health care provider will develop a personal asthma management plan for you, "Managing Your Asthma Day to Day." This plan includes asthma medications and a medicine plan, "Asthma Medications."

Situations of Living With Asthma - Under the Weather

It's morning and you don't quite feel well. Should you go to work or school or stay home? In general, you can probably go to the office or school if you have a stuffy nose but are not wheezing or if have a little wheezing that goes away after taking your asthma medicine. It's probably a wise decision to stay home from work if you have:

- a sore throat; swollen, painful neck glands; or other physical signs of infection

- a temperature greater than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (F) [oral] or 101 degrees F (rectal)

- wheezing or coughing that still bothers you after 1 hour after taking your asthma medicines

- weakness or fatigue that makes it difficult to perform your daily activities

- difficulty breathing or breathing very fast

- peak-flow reading below 65 to 70 percent of your personal best and no response to treatment

If you are unsure whether you should stay home, call your doctor. Be prepared to describe your symptoms and when they appeared.

Medicine Plan of Special Types of Asthma

The goal of a medicine plan for this kind of asthma is to help you maintain normal activity levels without asthma symptoms. Your health care provider will tell you how to prepare your airways for exercise or other strenuous activity. As with other forms of asthma, the key is to treat your airways before symptoms begin, or at least worsen.

For most people with exercise-induced asthma, inhaling a short-acting beta9 agonist within an hour before exercise prevents asthma symptoms. You can usually count on the medication working for about two to three hours. Other medications your doctor may prescribe are cromolyn and nedocromil. Again, these medications are taken before exercise.

You also may get less, and less severe, exercise-induced asthma if you use anti-inflammatory medications on a regular basis. You and your doctor will decide if this option is better for you.

What to Remember About Inhaling Asthma Medicine

You Have A Choice. When deciding how to inhale quick reliever or long-term controller medications, you have several options. MDIs are the most popular way to inhale asthma medicine. But you also can try a dry powder inhaler or, if you have severe asthma, a nebulizer. Consider using a spacer, which makes inhaling medication easier. Keep in mind that inhalers are improving. Ask your doctor about different types.

Technique Matters. Your inhaler only works if you use it correctly. Learning how takes time, patience, and practice. Ask your health care provider how to use an inhaler. While still at the doctors' office, practice. Also, get written instructions about using inhalers. Last, bring your inhaler to your check-up visits. Each time, show your doctor how you're using it. All this may sound like a lot of effort just to take your medication. But it's worth it. Good inhaler technique will help you get the full effect of your medication.