How do I know my asthma is under control?

There are two ways to measure if asthma is under control: the number of symptoms a patient has, and the measurement of airflow limitation. Pulmonologist Brian Gelbman, MD, discusses how to know if your asthma is being controlled properly.

Transcript

00:00

If your symptoms are present more than once a day or you're needing to use your albuterol inhaler more than twice a week, you probably need

00:06

to increase the amount of maintenance medication you're taking. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:15

There are two ways, as a doctor, we measure whether a patient's asthma is under control. The first is based on the number of symptoms they are having.

00:22

And the other would be the measurement of their airflow limitation. With regards to symptoms, we would want to know if patients are short of breath,

00:30

if they're coughing, or if they're needing to use their albuterol inhaler and how frequently. In general, we like to see people

00:37

using their albuterol rescue inhaler less than twice a week. We also want to see symptoms be present less than once a day.

00:45

If your symptoms are present more than once a day or you're needing to use your albuterol inhaler more than twice a week, you probably need

00:51

to increase the amount of maintenance medication you're taking. In addition to the symptoms, we also look at the airflow limitation.

00:59

There are two ways that this can be followed. The first would be to come into the office and have a breathing test called spirometry performed.

01:06

This can be performed at any pulmonologist's office and in most internal medicine offices. In addition to spirometry, a lot of patients

01:14

are given home peak flow meters, which they can blow into and record their own airflow limitations at home. If you feel your asthma is out of control

01:22

or you're having frequent symptoms, it's important for you to be in touch with your provider. It's also important that you carry around your albuterol rescue inhaler wherever you go.