What is a "holding chamber" or "spacer"?

What is a "holding chamber" or "spacer"?

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...

A spacer is any device that creates a space between the opening of the inhaler and your mouth. As I mentioned, when the medicine in a meter-dose inhaler comes out, it comes out at 8 to 9 miles per hour. Most of it's going to impact in the back of your throat and never make that turn into your lungs. What a spacer does is it creates a space so that the velocity of the particles coming out slows down so that by the time that space between the inhaler and your throat is reached, the particles are going at a much slower velocity and can make the turn. It, therefore, causes less problems with the throat. Now we use the term spacer for any type of space. It is not the same thing as a holding chamber which has a much larger volume and allows the medicine to stay in that chamber and then allows you to then, or your child, to then breathe in at a slower rate and allows a patient to use a meter-dose inhaler but doesn't have to have the coordination to breathe in the exact moment that the inhaler spits out the medicine. But it's really important when you use holding chambers that you don't wait more than a second or two from the time you spray it out 'til the time you get it into your lungs or you're gonna lose a lot of the medications that actually end up on the inside lining of the holding chamber.