Controlling Your Child's Asthma
What is asthma control?
Controlling your child’s asthma means preventing asthma symptoms and attacks
before they occur. According to doctors, asthma control through
symptom prevention means that your child
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Experiences few or no asthma symptoms such as coughing, wheezing or shortness of breath
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Is not waking up at night or early in the morning with coughing or breathing
problems
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Doesn’t need to use rescue medicine more than once a week, or uses less than
two canisters per year
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Can be active and does not avoid activities because they cause asthma symptoms
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Doesn’t miss any schoolwork because of asthma symptoms
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Has no or minimal adverse effects from his or her medicines
Controller medicines
You may have heard your child’s doctor use the term "controller medicine." When
used as prescribed, these controller medicines can help prevent asthma symptoms
and attacks from starting in the first place and can also help reduce how often
they occur and how severe the attacks are.
Asthma prevention begins by using the right treatment that fits your child’s
needs. Be sure that you speak with your child’s doctor to find out whether a
controller/preventive medicine is the right fit for your child’s asthma
treatment.
Involve the health care team
Having your child take controller/preventive medicines is not the only thing that you, as a parent, can do to control your child’s asthma. Work with his or her health care
team to develop an Asthma
Symptom Prevention Plan that you can use to make sure that your child’s
treatment regimen is the right fit.
The trip to the physician’s office is often challenging. Between keeping an eye
on your child at the office and listening to your health care team, it is quite
possible to forget to ask the questions you had long planned on asking the
doctor. The next time you visit your child’s doctor, use this
Doctor Visit Checklist to make sure you cover all the points you want
to discuss and all the questions you want answered.
If you have a lot of questions to discuss with the doctor, you might want to
bring another adult with you to help take care of your child in the waiting
room so you can discuss your concerns without distraction.
Next | Create An
Asthma Symptom Prevention Plan >>