See Also:
Asthma: Introduction & Overview
Asthma: Signs & Symptoms
Asthma: Types
Asthma: Causes & Risk Factors
Asthma: Tests and Diagnosis Methods
Asthma: Treatment Options
Asthma: Prevention Options & Article Sources

Treatment Options

Allopathic medicine (also known as standard Western medicine) treats asthma with drugs, pharmaceutical medication. These treatments are outlined on many websites, and may include:

• Bronchodilators like albuterol, to cause the airways to get larger and relieve shortness of breath. Patients of a specific genotype (the arginine 16 allele of the ß2 adrenergic receptor) have an abnormally accelerated accommodation reaction to these medications, requiring more and more to get the same response. These people should be treated with other forms of medications for the long term, although they may use the bronchodilators in the short term without danger.

• Steroids – given by inhalation – to decrease the inflammation in the airways, thereby reducing both the secretion of mucus and the amount of blood traveling in the capillaries around the small airways. Steroids are a preventative or prophylactic treatment, rather than a symptomatic treatment.

• Atropine-like agents (ipratropium bromide) are appropriate for those with the above-mentioned arginine 16 allele of the ß2 adrenergic receptor, although the bromide salt in itself is unhealthy for physiologic function of the body.

• Leukotriene inhibitors like Singulair® inhibit the manufacture of leukotrienes, agents which respond to allergen attack in the body. These agents may cause liver damage, and will inhibit the inflammatory response all over the body, not just in the lungs.

• Long-acting bronchodilators like salmeterol (Severent®) act like the albuterol type bronchodilators, only not as rapidly.

• Theophylline is an older medication which is seldom used because it has a narrow margin of safety before toxic symptoms occur – nausea, vomiting, heart rhythm abnormalities.

• Steroids – given by mouth – have an effect over the entire system. They may be very effective for a time, to control the symptoms of asthma, but over time they may result in ulcers, osteoporosis, increased susceptibility to infection, and loss of the body’s own adaptive mechanisms to increased stress.

• Acupuncture – which inserts tiny needles into specific places on the body in order to change the flow of energy within the channel where the needle is placed. Specific locations will stop an acute asthma attack within a few minutes. Other locations are geared more at restoring proper lung function for the long term.

• Intravenous magnesium - since magnesium is a vasodilator and muscle relaxant, it can help to restore blood supply to muscles surrounding the bronchioles, or tiny air passage, and allow those muscles to relax and recover their proper function, thus relieving wheezing.

• Homeopathic remedies – certain remedies are specific to relieving wheezing. Different remedies are chosen, depending on whether the wheezing is accompanied by fever, yellow sputum, left-sided or right-sided chest pain, etc.

• Immunotherapy – testing with antigens to determine reactivity (just like standard allergy testing, only using preservative-free antigens in multiple dilutions), and then treating with progressively increasing strengths of antigen to help the body develop a tolerance to the substance.

See Also:
Asthma: Introduction & Overview
Asthma: Signs & Symptoms
Asthma: Types
Asthma: Causes & Risk Factors
Asthma: Tests and Diagnosis Methods
Asthma: Treatment Options
Asthma: Prevention Options & Article Sources