Asthma Control is Like Birth Control

Male Speaker: With the diagnosis of a kid having asthma or an adult, there are two types of classes to get you onto the attack and one to prevent the attack. So I try to explain to patients, if you take a medicine to prevent the attack after you have the attack, it's sort of like taking a birth control pill after you're pregnant. Does that make sense?

Dr. S. Adimoolan: Yes. I even have a interesting analogy to give them. When you have asthma, it simply means that your lungs or your respiratory passages are literally on fire, and that's why it's called inflammation, your airways are inflamed. By taking medications to get quick relief like the Albuterol and Proventil, all those sprays, what we do is, basically, put out the fire or shut off the flames, but the fire underneath, still smothering. So that doesn't control it, so you need to take what we call a controller medicine to fully put out the fire. So that's really why you have to take such medications.


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