Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Asthma – Ways To Prevent Asthma

The key to preventing asthma attacks and better asthma control is to avoid your known asthma triggers. We have some basic tips on how to avoid your triggers. Keep your asthma symptoms at bay with these helpful asthma prevention techniques.

Mold Spores
Molds grow both indoors and outdoors and love damp, dark places. To control mold indoors, keep basements, kitchens, and bathrooms as clean and dry as possible. Avoid the use of humidifiers and vaporizers, which can become breeding grounds for mold. To avoid outdoor molds, stay inside in air conditioning on damp, windy days. Avoid playing or walking in fallen leaves and you may also have to avoid gardening.

Nuts also contain high levels of magnesium, which other research has suggested may protect against asthma and boost lung power.

Irritating fumes such as cigarette smoke should also be avoided. In some people with asthma, aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs trigger attacks. Tartrazine, a yellow coloring used in some drug tablets and food, may also bring on an attack. Sulfites—commonly added to foods as a preservative—may trigger attacks after a susceptible person eats a certain food or drinks beer or red wine.

A daily diet of oranges, apples and tomatoes protected against wheezing and allergic rhinitis, as well as grapes.

If you feel even the slightest symptom, take the medication. Some asthmatics tend to do that. They cough more than once and they think they are having an attack and then they take the medicines and they prevent an attack. We are not saying you have to take the inhaler the second you cough but don’t dismiss the symptoms. Always keep your prescriptions filled at all times. The best thing you can do to prevent an attack when you are away or shopping or in a restaurant is to tell the people you are with, where you keep the inhaler in case they need to use it.

The group of children involved in the asthma intervention program avoided pets, secondhand smoke and dust mites, and were delayed the introduction to solid foods; the mothers were encouraged to breastfeed. The other group of children did not partake in the asthma intervention program.

Short-acting bronchodilator inhalers are used to quickly relieve the cough, wheeze, chest tightness, and shortness of breath caused by asthma (they dilate or widen the bronchial tubes). The most commonly prescribed short-acting bronchodilator is albuterol. However, albuterol only lasts for a few hours. If you need to use an asthma reliever more than twice a week, then your asthma is not optimally controlled. Ask your doctor about improving your asthma controller medication.

Early allergy injection treatment - Two studies in young children who became allergic to a single allergen such as house dust mites showed that allergy shots against that allergen prevented the development of allergy to other allergens. This suggests that allergy testing and injection treatment in children may be important to consider before the time when this is usually first done - i.e., under age 5 years. The cost-effectiveness of doing this is unknown at present.




Read about Natural Herbal Home Remedies and Pregnancy Information Guide. Also read about Dental and Tooth Care Guide

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