A few years ago, my asthma specialist said that I had “well-controlled” moderate-to-severe asthma.
After years of feeling like I couldn’t control my asthma, I finally had it under control.
It wasn’t easy, though. It took a lot of persistence and working as a team for me to feel like I could live with my asthma. In addition, I had to change my perception of what “control” meant.
What is the “control” of asthma?
Doctors use a standard set of criteria to decide if someone’s asthma is under control. The problem is that this may look different for people with severe asthma than for people with mild to moderate asthma.
According to the Global Initiative for Asthma Guidelines, a person’s asthma is well-controlled if, in the last four weeks, they have:
- Symptoms occur less than twice a week.
- because of asthma, doesn’t wake up at night or early in the morning
- doesn’t need to use their rescue/reliever inhaler more than twice a week.
- asthma doesn’t stop them from doing things at work, school, home, or anywhere else.
Asthma is not a “one size fits all” problem. When controlling severe asthma, you need to change how you do things. For example, just because I need my rescue inhaler more than three times a week on average and naasongs.net have some symptoms most days doesn’t mean that my asthma isn’t under control.
You and your asthma specialist will talk about what “control” means to you in your own unique way. A big part of finally feeling in control of my severe asthma was learning that control would look different for me than it might for people with milder forms of the disease.
But they also had to do work.
Here are four things I had to do to get my asthma to where it is now and control my symptoms.
1. Many changes in medications
For me, finding the right mix of medicines was the most important part of keeping my asthma under control.
Everyone’s asthma is different, and everyone responds differently to medicines. But there are many medicines that can help, such as Ivecop 12 and Austro-ivermectin 12. So talk to your doctor to find the ones that work for you, and you can buy Austro Ivermectin 12 online from Woodstock Family Medicine.
You might have to wait a month or two for the medicines to work, so the key is to keep trying. Don’t forget that your goal is to find the best combination of medicines.
I now take three to four asthma medications every day, but the doses are lower than when I only took one or two.
2. Environmental changes
Changing your environment can be a good way to help you deal with your asthma.
I’m lucky that I don’t have a lot of allergies. But I am allergic to dust mites, so I have asthma- and allergy-friendly bedding in my room, like a dust-proof mattress cover. The carpet in my room had been there for a long time, so I recently put in hardwood flooring to replace it.
I don’t have any pets, but if you have an allergy to them, keeping them out of your bedroom can help you breathe better. If you’re allergic to pollen, you might also find it helpful to take a shower and change your clothes when you come in from being outside.
I mostly have asthma that isn’t caused by allergies, so a lot of how I deal with it is by luck.
For example, I don’t think my asthma is much better controlled now that I have wood floors in my bedroom instead of carpet. My main non-allergic triggers are smells, exercise, weather (extreme cold and humidity), viruses and colds, and changes in my hormones. Most of these things are hard to avoid, but the one thing I can do on my own is not use products that smell nice.
3. Accidents that help us get a better handle on things
As was already said, the changes in hormones that happen around my period are one of my triggers that took me a long time to figure out. In 2013, I was told I had uterine fibroids, and it’s likely that I’ll have to take birth control pills for the foreseeable future.
But this was a rare happy accident that happened because I have a lot of long-term health problems. Oral contraceptives have helped me control my asthma in the long run. It’s not often that little extras like that come up.
4. Assessment, re-assessment, and education
Unfortunately, it can be hard to treat severe asthma. To control your severe asthma symptoms, you may need to think about a lot of different things. Here are some things you should talk to your doctor about:
What is done evolves. Are there any new treatments that might help you? Are there things you haven’t talked about in a while that might make sense now? Some of these could be trying out new inhaled medicines, allergy shots, or biologic medicines.
Make sure you’re right. A study from 2017 showed that up to a third of people who are told they have asthma by a doctor may not actually have it. There may be conditions that look like something else.
such as problems with the vocal cords or the heart. Other times, the symptoms may go away. It can be important to have your doctor schedule pulmonary function tests or challenging tests to make sure you are really treating your asthma.
Think about other situations. Having asthma and other health problems at the same time can make them harder to control. Some conditions, like anxiety, vocal cord problems, acid reflux, and hypersensitivity pneumonitis, can also “look like” asthma.
These are called “asthma maskers.” In addition to making sure you have asthma, talk to your doctor about any other health problems you might have.
Teaching about asthma. A new set of eyes can sometimes make a big difference.
difference. You might get more out of seeing a certified asthma educator than your regular doctor. Certified asthma educators can teach you about asthma and help you figure out how your asthma is different from other people’s.
Takeaway
Everyone with asthma has a different kind, but severe asthma can be hard to control. The best way to deal with asthma is to work hard and never give up on getting better.
Even if your asthma symptoms are bothering you right now, it’s important to make changes that can make your life better. You never know when a new treatment that changes your life will come along.