Are Pills A More Effective Asthma Treatment?

A recent news story in the Daily Mail newspaper stated that “a once-a-day pill may be better than an inhaler at combating asthma.” The newspaper claimed that the tablet could free patients from dependence on inhalers and would be able to “revolutionise treatment for the condition”.

The pills in the article referred to, which are known as LTRA tablets, were tested in two trials with 650 patients that compared the drugs to inhaled treatments. Both were tested as an initial treatment for newly diagnosed asthma and for asthma that could not be controlled with a single inhaler.

Researchers found in both circumstances that all treatments produced a very similar improvement on patients’ quality of life in the beginning of the treatment. However, after two years, the quality of life scores were slightly higher in those who used inhalers.

This means that the tablets did not show better performance than inhalers, as many news sources have reported including the Daily Mail. Importantly, however, the researchers did find that people found it easier to use tablets than inhalers.

LTRA tablets have been available for a number of years, and this study looked at their use in a real-world setting rather than under the strictly controlled environment of an experimental trial. As such, the research can help inform us about factors such as patient’s adherence to their medication, but means that only limited conclusions can be drawn from its results.

LTRA tablets have their uses, just as inhalers do, and doctors can prescribe them when appropriate for an individual patient. However, the results of this research do not support the newspapers’ view that the pills are a better option for most patients.

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Are Pills A More Effective Asthma Treatment?

Categories: Asthma, inhaler, Pills

Asthma Sufferers Could Receive Help From Combo Inhaler

In most cases, people who suffer from asthma have to use two different inhalers to counteract the effects of the condition. The first is a fast-acting inhaler known as a ‘rescue inhaler’ which acts immediately to halt the effects of severe symptoms. The second is a longer-lasting general inhaler that can be used to manage symptoms over time. However, new research has suggested that it may be in the interest of many patients to combine the two inhalers.

The study revealed the interesting results that patients with moderate to severe asthma who used a combination inhaler had fewer attacks than those on two separate inhalers. The combination regime was more effective as a treatment for asthma than the conventional method, where you just use a fixed dose inhaler and a short-acting inhaler to relieve dangerous symptoms.

In asthma treatment, as with many conditions, the treatment increases as the severity of the condition does, so this combination of the two inhalers wasn’t always seen as the best possible option. However, it has now been shown that when asthma is difficult to treat, the combination of the drugs is the most effective.

With asthma it is important to treat patients individually and to monitor the symptoms closely. This combination treatment would not be the best way to start people off on their asthma treatment, but when the symptoms begin to get worse this can be considered the best possible option.

As with many changes in treatments there are a number of concerns about the combination of the two inhalers. One is that patients using the combination inhaler would get overexposed to corticosteroid or would overuse the inhaler itself. Getting too much of these drugs would actually be very bad for asthmatics.

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Asthma Sufferers Could Receive Help From Combo Inhaler

Categories: Asthma, inhaler, treatment

Take a Deep Breath: Why Do You Need an Asthma Inhaler?

When you have asthma, your inhaler should become your new best friend. Ok, so you don’t have to dress it up in little outfits and name it Pascale, but an inhaler gives your wellbeing a bit of protection when you’re facing asthma – an unpredictable condition.

Whilst you’re figuring out how your condition affects your wellness, it’s likely that a few surprises will occur along the way. There will always be something new that triggers a reaction, and causes your airways to become blocked, even though you’ve not known about that trigger for years. There are many ways that asthma can be treated, but when you have an inhaler, you have the vital tool you need at your disposal to fight the unpredictability of asthma triggers.

If you face this type of condition with any severity, having an inhaler is a must, but even if your asthma is only mild, access to an inhaler can be helpful on those rare occasions when something does set your asthma off. It’s important because it allows you to get almost immediate relief, which is crucial when you’re having an asthma reaction. Imagine you are outdoors, enjoying a bit of sunshine, and then you breathe in some pollen or mist and you’re facing a reaction. Do you want to be in that situation without an inhaler?

The way inhalers work is that they simply allow you to breathe in your asthma medication quickly. This means that the medication can get right into your airways, open up your muscles there and allow you to breath normally again. Though other medications that are taken in the form of a pill or injection eventually will have the same effect, they take more time to actually get into your system and provide help.

If you think that you can use someone else’s inhaler in a desperate situation, tread with caution. Not everyone that has asthma will have the same medications within their inhaler, and the medication that yours contains with depend on the severity of your specific asthma reaction. Therefore, what a doctor prescribes your friend may not be enough to help you. Also, make sure you keep your medications up to date and with you at all times to receive the help that only your inhaler can provide. Most people don’t want to have to use an inhaler, but when the need arises, surely no one wants to be without one.

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Take a Deep Breath: Why Do You Need an Asthma Inhaler?

Categories: Asthma Relief, inhaler, medication