Asthma Treatment

CDC - Asthma - Management and Treatment

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Management and Treatment
On this Page

• How Is Asthma Treated?
• Other Resources

How Is Asthma Treated?
You can control your asthma and avoid an attack by taking
your medicine exactly as your doctor or other medical
professional tells you to do and by avoiding things that can
cause an attack.
Not everyone with asthma takes the same medicine. Some
medicines can be inhaled, or breathed in, and some can be
taken as a pill. Asthma medicines come in two types—quick
relief and long-term control. Quick-relief medicines control the symptoms of an asthma attack. If
you need to use your quick-relief medicines more and more, you should visit your doctor or other
medical professional to see if you need a different medicine. Long-term control medicines help you
have fewer and milder attacks, but they don’t help you if you’re having an asthma attack.
Asthma medicines can have side effects, but most side effects are mild and soon go away. Ask your
doctor or other medical professional about the side effects of your medicines.
The important thing to remember is that you can control your asthma. With your doctor’s or other
medical professional’s help, make your own asthma action plan (management plan) so that you know
what to do based on your own symptoms. Decide who should have a copy of your plan and where he
or she should keep it.
You can learn more about asthma action plans
(http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/lung/asthma/asthma_actplan.htm)

from the National

Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Take your long-term control medicine even when you don’t have
symptoms.

https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/management.html

1/27/2017

CDC - Asthma - Management and Treatment

The above text is from the "You Can Control Your Asthma"

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[PDF - 4074 KB] full-color brochure and

is suitable for downloading and printing.

Other Resources
American Lung Association (http://www.lungusa.org)
This site provides information about asthma management and treatment options to help you take
control of your asthma. It includes facts about asthma, asthma attacks, asthma medicines, peak flow
meters, and home control of allergies and asthma.
National Heart, Blood, and Lung Institute
(http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/lung/index.htm#asthma)
This site provides an easy-to-read guide, So You Have Asthma
(http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/lung/asthma/have_asthma.htm)

, to help you learn about

the latest information on asthma management and also provides facts about asthma
(http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Asthma/Asthma_WhatIs.html)

.
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Page last reviewed: April 24, 2009
Page last updated: April 27, 2009
Content source: National Center for Environmental Health (/nceh)

https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/management.html

1/27/2017