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strongly recommended that they should only be used as a last resort when other medicines failed to control asthma.
Preventer medication
For most sufferers, their first introduction to asthma medication is a reliever. Mine was Ventolin. However this often becomes less effective with time and it becomes necessary to increase it to get the same relief. To prevent this dangerous state of affairs, a preventer is usually used to make the reliever more effective.
Preventers fall into two basic categories, steroid and non-steroid. As steroid preventers are far more powerful, they are commonly used; the non-steroid forms being introduced to supplement them.
I used a Becotide inhaler for many years and this did cut down the number of Ventolin puffs I needed each day. However, my doses of both inhalers were gradually increasing. When I had an infection, or the inhalers failed to work for some reason, I was given oral steroids, which are much stronger.
Although steroid medication has received a lot of bad publicity due to serious side-effects, for asthma sufferers it is essential. This is because without it, huge doses of bronchodilators are required and this is very dangerous.
Therefore, if you have been prescribed a steroid preventer, you must take it. If you want to reduce your medication, you must reduce your relievers first. This is not easy to do alone. With the help of a Buteyko practitioner however, it can be done. When you've managed this you can go to your doctor with the good news and request a step-down program for the steroids too.
Omalizumab is a relatively new and very expensive treatment for allergy related asthma. It is used when symptoms are inadequately controlled by inhaled steroids and is administered by injection. Omalizumab reduces the immune system's reaction to allergies and so reduces symptoms.
It has been hailed by experts as a "truly life-transforming drug" but reactions such as soreness and irritation around the injection site are common. Now however, there have been warnings of far more serious side effects.
In a press release issued in February 2007, the US Food and Drug Administration requested that the label on the omalizumab, Xolair, be revised and that a Medication Guide be included in the box to strengthen the existing warning for anaphylaxis.
What if you don't reduce your medication?
There are always exceptions to every rule. Just as some people can get away with smoking forty cigarettes a day for forty years, and others who can eat what they like without putting on weight, there may be those who can puff away at bronchodilators all their lives with no ill effects.
Of course, I never meet these people because they don't have a problem. For those I do meet however, the rule is always followed. The more bronchodilators used, the more needed.
Often drugs are doubled up, or more than one bronchodilator is used, as people become more and more desperate to breathe. These might be in tablet form, which means a lot more of the drug is taken. Many people use nebulisers, usually with huge doses of bronchodilators, which may be used six times a day, sometimes more.
If this fails, infusion pumps are sometimes prescribed. These deliver regular doses of bronchodilator via a syringe at preset intervals, although the patient can have an additional dose when required by pressing a button.
There is also the possibility of bronchial thermoplasty. During this procedure, doctors snake wires inside the lungs of asthma patients and pass radio-frequency waves along them. This has been compared to a microwave oven, cooking meat without scorching the outer skin as a grill would. As a result, some muscle tissue disintegrates and it is hoped that this might help patients to breathe.
These are desperate measures used when less extreme medication has failed, as it so often does. There is little likelihood however that they will cure asthma and every probability that they too will become less effective with time. Then there is the probability that, like all medication, they will have as yet unknown side effects, especially in the long term.
The Buteyko breathing method is the safe alternative. The sooner you decide to try it the easier it will be because you will have fewer drug dependencies to overcome. If you haven't started using asthma medication yet but feel you might need it soon, try Buteyko first. It could prevent a lifetime's drug dependency.
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