Asthma Meds - Pulmicort

Male: In the treatment of asthma, we try to keep the kid controlled so they don’t have to end up in the emergency room or doctor visits unnecessarily. And one of the medicines we use is I think called Pulmicort. How does Pulmicort work and why do we use it on a regular basis?

Dr. Marcus: In caring for children with asthma, controller medications are very important both to prevent symptoms as well as to maintain good lung function and let our patients have the optimal activity and quality of life. The group of medications that have considered the number one group in helping to prevent symptoms are the inhaled corticosteroids and Pulmicort is an inhaled corticosteroid that we commonly use. It is an inhaled corticosteroid that comes in both a nebulizer form as well as in an inhaler form. So we have two mechanisms of giving the medication depending on the patient’s ability to inhale the medicine properly and the effect that they receive. Pulmicort, when given to the med patient on a regular basis, once or twice a day, decreases the inflammation in the lung that is present when you have asthma. By decreasing this inflammation we do two things. First, we help decrease how sensitive the lungs are so that if you are exposed to something which would otherwise trigger their asthma, the asthma won’t be triggered or if it is triggered it will be far less severe. Secondly, what Pulmicort would also do is it decreases the amount of scarring that can develop on the lung which we see in patients who have asthma which is insufficiently treated overtime.



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