Asthma grew from mild to uncontrolled

[Asake]

Hello everyone, I am quite new but I would love to share my asthma experience. I wasn't born asthmatics but developed the symptoms when I was 15 and it was quite manageable until it became a bit severe when I was 17. As at then I do use ventolin tablet because my parents had the misconception that inhaler compound asthma.

It became an everyday symptoms then my doctor recommended Seretide which I am presently on. At first it did control my asthma very well but now seretide doesn't work well on me, it doesn't control my symptoms as it does in the past.

I now heavily rely on my rescue inhaler . So I just want to know if anyone had experience this before and how you were able to tackle it.

All my doctor keep telling me is to continue with the seretide even though I don't get total relief . Am currently on montekulast too and am just 21 years old

[Morrisnlm]

I also wasn’t born asthmatic - though in my early twenties I suspected I was - not formally diagnosed until 2010 when I had a severe attack after a 6 day course of steroids went back to just relying on odd use of rescue inhaler until 2018 when had another severe attack.

You could try the following:

1. Find out what is triggering your asthma- and ask for an allergy test to see which is the most significant (you will have to wait a while mine is Feb 2019)

2. Buketyo breathing techniques -have worked really well for me since the latest attack.

3. Take more exercise - doesn’t need to be energetic -walking is great - cycling probably even better (definitely keeps my asthma under control -I really notice a difference within a week if I haven’t been out on my bike).

4. Try eating as healthily as possible - I don’t count calories -just try to eat as much fruit and veg as you can and a bit less of unhealthy stuff.

5. I have hay fever so take a teaspoon of honey most days -my hay fever is much better that it was but can’t be certain it’s because of the honey.

Hope that helps -if you can find out what works for you that will give you confidence that you can manage you asthma hopefully with just your rescue inhaler.

[Lysistrata Administrator Community Ambassador]

Sounds like your control is not good - you should not be relying on your rescue inhaler that much and your doctor absolutely should not be ignoring this. Is there another doctor you can see? You probably need to change or step up treatment as poor control puts you at risk of an attack. I would advise speaking to the Asthma UK nurses as they are very helpful and should be able to advise on how to approach your doctor and what your options are. You could try looking on the AUK website too as there should be a test you can take to measure your control and risk of attack and you could show this to your doctor.

Identifying your triggers is useful and an allergy test may be part of that but isn't everything. Not all asthma is allergic and many triggers are not allergy based - my allergy tests were negative but I hsve various others like smoke, perfumes, paint and weather eg humidity and cod air. Alongside seeing your doctor you could start to think about what triggers you and when you are worse eg at night, in hot weather.

[picboy]

I found seratide useless I use symbicort 400 and rarely ever use ventolin.got asthma 6years ago its fairly under control