How is asthma treated?

How is asthma treated?

William Berger (Allergist and Immunologist) gives expert video advice on: How is asthma treated?; How important is it to identify my asthma triggers?; What side effects should I expect from my asthma medication? and more...

The approach to the treathment of asthma and other allergic disorders is a three fold approach. First is to identify the triggers and do everything we can to avoid those triggers, whether they be allergic triggers or non allergic triggers. Second is medications, which are very effective, and third is immunotherapy when patients aren't completely controlled by avoiding their triggers, and the medications that are given. Immunotherapy is another term for allergy shots. The medications certainly are extremely important when you are dealing with a chronic disease such as asthma. An asthma treatment essentially falls into two classes of medications; controller medications: medications that need to be taken on a regular basis to control their symptoms with these medications, and the other, what we refer to as rescue medications: medications that are needed when the patient is having severe symptoms despite the use of their controller medications. It's important that the patients understand which are their controller medications and which are their rescue medications and use them appropriately.