Why You Need to Take Asthma Medicine, Even If You Feel Fine

“Okay, today I am feeling fine; then I can skip the medicine today”. Have you ever stopped taking your medicines once you feel you have recovered and a day after the symptoms rebound? Wonder why? Sometimes even after recovering, symptoms tend to be roller coaster because of not complete eradication of the diseases. Once patients are well controlled on medications, a part of their psyche thinks they have been cured and they no longer need medication. But doctors completely disregard this psyche and always suggest you to complete the course of medicines even though you feel yourself to be perfectly fine. It is because every recovery goes through a maintenance cycle and importance of this maintenance phase should not be neglected.  Patients failing to take their maintenance medication or taking medication incorrectly or going on and off on the medication often observe the recurrence of symptoms. Specifically talking about asthma, it’s not that people with asthma are trying to dupe their doctor but the problem is with asthma itself. Asthma gives a false impression of recovery to the patient even when they are diagnosed unwell and that is why the patients are lulled into a false sense of security, because in case of asthma it is hard to predict , asthma once supressed when it will outbreak next. It can be simply hours, days, weeks, or months.

Why do the symptoms of Asthma re-emerge?

When the asthma attacks a person,the lining of the airway gets inflamed and it begins secreting more mucus rapidlyhereby blocking or narrowing the airways thus making breathing difficult. This disease is triggered by various factors like cigarette smoke, strong odors, wood smoke, household cleaners, or inhaling certain substances like pollen, mites, or mold.Many people with asthma only see it flare up at certain times of the year this is because of the factor who are responsible for triggering asthma which decides disease’s severity and persistence, if a person is suffering with seasonal asthma for instance and is allergic to the pollens will suffer with asthma during the early spring.

Generally asthma is categorised as Intermittent Asthma or Chronic Asthma. In Intermittent asthma, symptoms occur less than three times a week. Intermittent Asthma can get by using only a short-acting or “rescue” inhaler when symptoms develop. However chronic asthma refers to the underlying inflammation that is always present in the lungs of asthma patients.  The degree of this inflammation is what determines the severity of your asthma. The best way of treating this is with asthma controller medicines, which are most commonly inhaled steroids.  These patients need to take a maintenance medication to reduce inflammation between attacks.

Why skipping medicines during the treatment is devastating?

Skipping medications, even when you don’t have any symptoms, could mean more flare-ups and worsened asthma.  As in with asthma there is inflammation associated with lungs that impede the lungs function so it is necessary to control this inflammation and continued useof anti-inflammatory maintenance medications is favoured. The corticosteroids in the medications aimed to cure asthma help prevent that inflammation and reduce the chances of an exacerbation. This exacerbation though cannot be completely prevented,but the risk of severity may be minimised. Sometimes the doses of medicine could be lowered if you have a disliking with the drugs, but let doctor take that decision of reducing the dosage.

Take your steroids and prevent the exacerbation: The Maintenance Drugs

Few patients will go weeks or even months without a problem even if not taking maintenance medications. But doctors can’t always tell which patients fall into this category so it is recommended to follow your medications religiously.Not taking maintenance medications makes patients more vulnerable. Asthma is resulted due to an inflammation in the airways and that inflammation doesn’t go even if you feel well. That inflammation is pretty much always there, only symptoms are emerged when a certain threshold is reached and that threshold is different for each person. This inflammation can be reduced by taking Anti-inflammatory medications. For treating asthma steroids are used as Anti-inflammatory. These steroids should not be confused with the steroids taken by the athletes since both the classes are different. Thesesteroids act as controller of asthma;they work by blocking the inflammation response in the lungs and decrease the inflammation over the time. Althoughsteroids can’t stop symptoms once they get started yet they can prevent recurrence. Common steroids include Fluticasone, Budesonide, Beclomethasone, Ciclesonide and Mometasone. Some drugs are sold in combinations.

Skipping a medication may trigger ‘Hidden Asthma’: Asthma and Kids

When your kid says that he sees wheezing in his chest, his chest is aching while breathing or he was playing with his favourite pet and caught infection, these symptoms straightaway indicate the onsetof asthma. Treating and preventing the asthma in the kids is very important because if left untreated, asthma may periodically become more severe and parents may perceive that their child is cured which infact is not. In kids if it is not treated, it may complicate the things and cause hidden asthma which means asthma re-emerging with the passage of time. Expert says that remission of symptoms may occur during adolescence, but there is no cure for asthma, and the condition will likely to reappear in adulthood, if neglected in childhood. The symptoms may be perceived as vanished in childhood but may emerge with the contact of unexpected triggers such as a cold, allergy, chemical irritant, or air pollution.

It is usual for the parents to skip the medication

Steroids are life-saving drugs as it prevents the dissemination of the infection to other parts and hence reduce the inflammation of airways. Parents occasionally drop or skip the medicine that comes with steroids in them because they are scared and waryof the side effects of steroids in their kids. They think that steroid component in maintenance drugs have a disastrouseffect on their child’s development, however this is not that bad drug, infact it is the most effective drug in treatment of asthma. Growth suppression issue should not be a reason to avoid steroids.Steroids can be devastating only if swallowed without the doctor’s consultation, but generally the asthmatic patients are inhaling the steroids, not swallowing. When inhaled it is directly penetrated to the target organs than acting on other organs.But there are the cases that are very severe requiring an immediate hospitalisation where thedoctorhas no choice than to put kid on oral corticosteroids which is relatively stronger than inhaled corticosteroids.However few precautions could be taken with the steroids intake and that is gargle your mouth after using the inhaler and rinse and clean the asthma inhaler and devices used.You can also use metered dose inhalers.

Whatis required is prevention and not the forfeiture!

Concluding the article, skipping of medicine is not advisable and may cause unknown sudden symptoms which may aggravate the present status of disease. Asthma is a disease which sometime turns in life threatening with improper medication, so don’t mistake to take it easy. You in any case should not skip your maintenance medications. You should always take them as prescribed every day. If you feel any discomfort with the medicine, talk in detail with the doctor but don’t dump your medicines.