How to Control Asthma Symptoms

Although there's no cure for asthma, there are many things you can do to manage your asthma and keep symptoms to a minimum. Avoiding triggers and modifying your lifestyle will help.

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Bandannas
• Silk Scarf
• Caffeinated Beverages
• Asthma Medications
• Relaxation Tapes
• Notebooks
• Pens
• Pollen/dust Masks
• Pens
• Notebooks

1. Follow your doctor's medical advice, and don't discontinue your medications on your own. Undergo allergy tests as recommended by your doctor and comply with the follow-up treatment.

2. Keep a notebook and write down what you were doing right before you developed asthma symptoms, no matter how mild they were, each time they occur. Look for a pattern.

3. Stay away from any external trigger or allergy that your observations uncover or that tests reveal, whether that means dust that gets stirred up from cleaning, animal dander you're exposed to when riding a horse, or even your bedding if you find you can't breathe upon waking.

4. Avoid cigarette smoke, gasoline and paint fumes, perfume, aftershave, cold air, and pollution, including smoke from a wood stove or campfire. These are all irritants to someone with asthma.

5. Do your best to prevent colds. Stay away from anyone with an upper respiratory infection. Many patients say their symptoms started after a cold.

6. Control stress. Muscle tension and shallow breathing encourage asthma attacks. Practice relaxation techniques. Take yoga classes. Participate in activities that help you relax.

7. Drink a moderate amount of caffeinated coffee, tea or cola, unless otherwise ordered by your doctor. Caffeine, related to theophylline, is mildly therapeutic for asthma. However, too much caffeine can aggravate it.

8. Take prescribed asthma medication, both oral and inhalant, as recommended by your doctor. Bronchodilators and other drugs prescribed by your doctor relax smooth bronchial muscle tissue, decrease inflammation and help keep airways open.

9. Exercise regularly per your doctor's recommendation. Proper use of prescription medication can decrease or eliminate asthma that is induced by exercise.

10. Learn how to breathe from your diaphragm and purse-lip breathe whenever your breathing feels labored, tight or fast, or when you feel stressed. To breathe from your diaphragm, lie down or sit in front of a mirror. Put one hand on your stomach, the other on your chest. Take a deep breath through your nose. Your stomach should rise under your hand each time you breathe; your chest should not rise. To purse-lip breathe, close your mouth and inhale through your nose. Purse your lips as if you're going to blow out a candle. Exhale slowly with as little force as possible. Your exhale should last twice as long as your inhale. Don't hold your breath between inhalation and exhalation.

Tips & Warnings

• Get a flu shot if you have asthma.
• Talk to your doctor about getting a peak flow meter, which can help you monitor your asthma.
• For more information about asthma, including breathing exercises, call (800) 7-ASTHMA. Or call the American Lung Association at (800) LUNG-USA.
• This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment.

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on 6/30/2006 Asthma is an allergic condition and is more likely to develop in people with other allergic reactions, such as hay fever and eczema. Some sensible precautions will make life easier for asthma sufferers:

- Don't smoke and don't expose your children to passive smoke. Their chances of developing asthma will shoot up if you do.
- Practice regular exercise.
- Identify and try to minimize exposure to your own asthma triggers - typical triggers include dust, mites, pet fur, pollution and stress.
- Use your inhalers as prescribed by your physician(s) and keep in regular touch with them.

on 11/22/2005 Buteyko breathing is a natural method to alleviate the source of asthma, so that medications are no longer needed. During a 10 hour workshop, you can master safe, simple, scientifically proven techniques designed to restore normal breathing during all activities (such as speaking, eating, exercising, and sleeping). Approaching respiration the right way relieves symptoms.

on 11/22/2005 Have the asthmatic lie on their side and prop the head up with their hand. Then with both hands, rapidly go up and down their side and pat their side. Have them cough before switching sides to allow them to bring up some of the loosened mucus. Switch sides and then repeat.