Get your asthma under control now so you can enjoy sports activities this spring and summer. Nearly 20 million Americans suffer from asthma. It’s important for you to get your asthma under control now before it starts to restrict your physical activities.

Asthma is a chronic disease, and it requires continuous management and appropriate treatment. Ac¬cording to the National Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma (National Asthma Educa¬tion and Prevention Program, National Institutes of Health, 1997), asthma man¬agement has four main components:

• The use of objective measure of lung function (such as peak flow meters and spirometers) to assess the severity of asthma and to monitor the course of treatment.
• Environmental control measures to avoid or eliminate factors that trig¬ger asthma symptoms or flare-ups.
• Medication therapy for long-term management to reverse and prevent airway inflammation, as well as therapy to manage asthma flare-ups.
• Patient education to foster a partner¬ship between the patients, his or her family, and the physician and other healthcare providers.

Asthma management includes using proper medi¬cations to prevent and control asthma symptoms, and to reduce airway inflamma¬tion. Asthma medications are thus categorized into two general classes, quick-relief and long-term control medications.

Quick-relief medications are used to provide temporary relief of symptoms. Long-term control medications are taken daily to control the airway inflammation in persistent asthma. Combination therapy, with the addition of a long-acting beta2-agonist, to low-to-medium doses of inhaled corticosteroids, results in improvement in asthma control. Adding a leukotriene modifier or theophylline to inhaled corticosteroids may also improve asthma control, but the evidence is not as substantial.

You and your physician should work together to ensure that your asthma is well-man¬aged. Having asthma should not stop you from participating in normal activities. Make sure you follow your physician’s instruc¬tions on the appropriate use and dosage of your prescribed medications.

The better informed you are about your asthma triggers and management, the less asthma symptoms will interfere with your activities. It is important to avoid your triggers, work with your physician on a management plan and take appropri¬ate medications as prescribed.

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