Your doctor also may want to know what factors seem to trigger your symptoms or worsen them.
Your doctor will listen to your breathing and look for signs of asthma or allergies. These signs include wheezing, a runny nose or swollen nasal passages, and allergic skin conditions, such as eczema.
Your doctor will use pulmonary function tests to check how your lungs are working.
Spirometry measures how much air you can breathe in and out. It also measures how fast you can blow air out.
Bronchoprovocation tests measure how your airways react to specific exposures. Using spirometry, this test repeatedly measures your lung function during physical activity or after you receive increasing doses of cold air or a special chemical to breathe in. Fractional concentration of exhaled nitric oxide tests measure how much nitric oxide is in the air you exhale. This test can be helpful to diagnose or guide asthma treatment in some patients.
A chest X-ray or an EKG (electrocardiogram). These tests will help find out whether a foreign object or other disease may be causing your symptoms.
The most certain way to diagnose asthma is with a pulmonary function test (spirometry), a medical history, and a physical exam. However, it's hard to do pulmonary function tests in children younger than 5 years. Thus, doctors must rely on children's medical histories, signs and symptoms, and physical exams to make a diagnosis.
Doctors also may use a four- to six-week trial of asthma medicines to see how well a child responds.
One possible asthma trigger you shouldn't avoid is physical activity. Physical activity is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Talk with your doctor about medicines that can help you stay active.
Inhaled corticosteroids are the preferred medicine for long-term control of asthma. They're the most effective option for long-term relief of the inflammation and swelling that makes your airways sensitive to certain inhaled substances.
Your doctor may prescribe low-dose inhaled corticosteroids that you will need to take each day. If your symptoms get worse, your doctor may prescribe higher doses to prevent severe flare-ups. however, one study of children between the ages of 5 and 11 found that children given the higher doses when their symptoms worsened did not experience fewer severe flare-ups.
More frequent or prolonged high-dose inhaled corticosteroids in children in this age group may also affect growth.
Anti-inflammatory medicine, such as cromolyn.
This medicine is taken using a device called a nebulizer. As you breathe in, the nebulizer sends a fine mist of medicine to your lungs. Cromolyn helps prevent airway inflammation.
Immunomodulators, such as omalizumab (anti-IgE).
This medicine is given as a shot (injection) one or two times a month. It helps prevent your body from reacting to asthma triggers, such as pollen and dust mites. Anti-IgE might be used if other asthma medicines have not worked well.
These medicines open the airways. They might be added to inhaled corticosteroids to improve asthma control. Inhaled long-acting beta2-agonists should never be used on their own for long-term asthma control. They must used with inhaled corticosteroids.
These medicines are taken by mouth. They help block the chain reaction that increases inflammation in your airways.
This medicine is taken by mouth. Theophylline helps open the airways.
With some medicines, like theophylline, your doctor will check the level of medicine in your blood. This helps ensure that you're getting enough medicine to relieve your asthma symptoms, but not so much that it causes dangerous side effects.
If you have asthma, you'll need long-term care. Successful asthma treatment requires that you take an active role in your care and follow your asthma action plan.
Have regular asthma check-ups with your doctor so he or she can assess your level of asthma control and adjust your treatment as needed. Remember, the main goal of asthma treatment is to achieve the best control of your asthma using the least amount of medicine. This may require frequent adjustments to your treatments.