Asthma is an individual condition, it varies from person to person. Health
professionals are advisers to your health, but ultimately you decide which treatment is
best for you.
The aim of conventional asthma medications is to act on the symptoms, so that
asthma doesn't affect your life. The aim of most complementary therapies is work on
the cause rather than the symptoms. Initially they do not replace conventional
medications, but work along side them. The goal of both your doctor and your
complementary therapist should be to provide the best asthma management with the
least risk.
When managing your asthma, you should set goals. These might include:
no asthma symptoms day and night
no emergency treatments
no lifestyle restrictions
minimum medication
To achieve these goals, research which treatment options best suit you. You need to
weigh up the possible benefits and the possible risks to determine what's right for you.
Through the right treatments asthma becomes a word, not a sentence. We're here to
help you make informed choices.
What Every Asthmatic Sould Know.
Be Informed
Over thousands of years medications, both natural and artificial have been developed
with the aim of improving quality of life or people's health. Some of these
medications have unwanted side effects that are not noticed until some time after the
person begins to take them.
Thalidomide is a classic example; it was prescribed to pregnant women who were
having terrible morning sickness. It worked wonderfully well at the time in improving
the quality of life for those women. Unfortunately later on, the disastrous
consequences of the drug on the unborn child were revealed.
There are parallels in the field of Asthma where not enough research was done before
the drugs became widely used - Fenoterol being one example. The intention is always
to improve the lifestyle of Asthmatics but it does not always work out like that.
For these very reasons it is vital that you find out what your medication is for and to
use it the way it was intended. This will help you get maximum benefit with
minimum side effects.
