3 Keys to Living With Asthma
Having asthma can be difficult, but if you pay attention to details of good and correct asthma handling, you or your child can have a healthy and active life. A positive way of living with asthma can be started with a good asthma management plan by focusing on controlling and preventing asthma from interfering with your life. Consult a doctor to design a plan that suits you, which includes:
- lifestyle changes and an environment that helps you avoid asthma triggers
- asthma medicines to help prevent and control asthma symptoms
- plans to address the emergence of asthma, such as asthma attacks.
Make sure you consult a doctor, as well as regular follow-up visits. If things do not work, take a proactive role in your health.
Living with asthma will be easier if you know much about it
The phrase "knowledge is power" has to guide you in overcoming asthma. The more you know about asthma, what causes it, how to prevent it, the better you can take care of yourself, and the healthier you are. Here are some things you need to know:
- How to use the medicine appropriately. First, find out about your asthma medication, when to take it, potential side effects, and how the drug controls asthma. If you use a metered dose inhaler, learn how to use it appropriately.
- What is the trigger and how to avoid it. It is important to know what triggers your asthma symptoms. Triggers vary from person to person, so it may take some time to find them. Recording in a diary can help. Once you know the trigger, you can avoid or restrict contacts with the trigger.
Do not let asthma interfere with your activities
Remember, you can still stay active and healthy even if you have asthma. Asthma treatment has grown tremendously in the last few decades, where people with asthma can do almost anything that people without asthma can do, like competitive sports. In fact, many Olympic athletes have asthma.
The key to living with successful asthma is to keep your asthma under control. Restrict contact with asthma triggers by controlling the environment, monitoring your condition with peak flow meters, and following appropriate treatment plans. Environmental changes to eliminate asthma triggers may be difficult, but will be comparable to the outcome. You will feel much better if you manage to keep your home free from triggers as much as possible. In some cases, you might consider moving from your area, as certain areas of a country are worse for people with asthma.
Overcoming the emergency
It is important to realize that people who take the drug as recommended and avoid asthma triggers can still be affected by sudden asthma attacks. Thus, it is important to have an "Asthma Action Plan" for such cases.
The Asthma Action Plan is a written guide that can help you to:
- identify the signs when asthma will recur. Signs may include symptoms and results of your peak flow meter reading.
- know the exact action that needs to be done, based on what you feel, your peak flow rate, and your current stage.
- acts quickly against signs of danger to prevent or stop an asthma attack.
When the condition of asthma is uncontrolled, there are some signs you can not ignore that indicate your asthma condition worsens:
- asthma symptoms become frequent
- asthma symptoms become intense
- asthma symptoms awaken you at night
- missed a lesson or job due to asthma
- peak flow rate is low or changes day by day
- your symptoms do not improve even though they are treated with asthma medication
- require more frequent inhalers than usual
The important thing for you to realize is that you can still have an active life with asthma, although you need to make some adjustments, such as avoiding outdoor exercise in the morning, when the most amount of powder (if the flower is one of the trigger conditions your asthma).
