Asthma Part 1

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The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.

Asthma is " a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways characterized by paroxysmal or recurrent symptoms (cough, wheeze, chest tightness, and shortness of breath), with variable airflow limitation and airway hyperresponsiveness to a variety of stimuli". Now if that isn't a mouthful, I don't know what is. Let's break that down into some manageable parts.

First, your lungs are not just big bags of air. Inside your lungs are lots and lots of air way tubes that branch into finer and finer tubes like the roots of a tree. Towards the ends of this branching airway system, the tubes get really small, so it doesn't take very much to block them. Now we'll talk about inflammation. If you took a piece of sandpaper and rubbed it on your hand for a minute, that spot on your had would get sore, red and swollen. Well that is just what the tiny tubes in the lungs do in an asthma attack. They get red and swell shut. We call this inflammation. Finally, in asthma, having the airways swell shut doesn't happen all the time. It comes and goes, and usually we can identify and avoid triggers that cause the inflammation to happen.

Some people with asthma don’t realize that their asthma is not as well controlled as it could be and that if it was better controlled they could be more comfortable and do more things. Here are six questions to check asthma control.

· Do you have problems with coughing, wheezing, breathlessness or chest tightness 3 or more times per week?
· Do you need to use your fast acting inhaler (usually your “blue” puffer) 3 or more times per week?
If an asthmatic needs his/her fast acting inhaler, or coughs most days, often that means if we removed some asthma triggers from the environment and used a controller medication daily we could get the patient to breath better.
· Do symptoms like cough, wheeze, breathlessness or chest tightness wake you up more than once a week?
Symptoms at night are usually a sign that bedding or bedroom triggers need to be looked at and a controller medication used consistently.
· Have there been any physical activities that you were unable to do in the past 3 months due to your asthma?
· Have you missed any school or work in the past 3 months due to asthma?
If asthma is well controlled, a person should be able to do any physical activity they desire and should not miss any school or work due to asthma symptoms.
· Have you had to go to the emergency room or hospital due to asthma in the past 6 months?
Visiting the ER due to asthma is a definite sign that a person’s asthma care plan should be examined

Do you or someone you know have any of the previous 6 problems? The Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy is running asthma check-ups. Call us at 638-4602 and book an appointment. Bring in all your asthma medication and one of our pharmacists will check to see if you are using them properly and see if there are any changes that could be made to help you breathe better.

Next time we will talk about some different asthma medications.

As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.