Inhaler

Getting the medicine to the airway rather than through the bloodstream is the entire advantage, and it is also the entire difficulty: studies consistently find that a large proportion of people use their inhaler incorrectly, and most of them believe they are using it correctly. An asthmaAsthmaAsthma is a long-term condition in which the airways are inflamed and tighten in response to triggers, causing wheeze, cough, chest tightness and breathlessness that come and go. It is controllable in almost everyone with the right treatment used correctly.Read the full definition that seems not to respond to treatment is, more often than anything else, a technique problem rather than a drug problem.

Using a metered-dose inhaler properly

1. Remove the cap and shake the inhaler well.
2. Breathe out gently, away from the inhaler, until the lungs feel comfortably empty.
3. Put the mouthpiece between the teeth and seal the lips around it, or hold the spacer mouthpiece in the same way.
4. Start to breathe in slowly and press the canister once, then keep breathing in slowly and deeply.
5. Hold your breath for about ten seconds, or as long as is comfortable, then breathe out gently.
6. Wait about thirty seconds before a second puff, and rinse your mouth after a preventer.

Use a spacer with any metered-dose inhaler. It removes the need to coordinate the press with the breath, catches the large droplets that would otherwise hit the back of the throat, and roughly doubles the amount reaching the lung. For a child, a spacer with a mask is not an optional accessory. Dry powder inhalers work differently and need a fast, forceful breath in, with no spacer.

Know which of yours is which. The reliever is a bronchodilatorBronchodilatorA bronchodilator is a medicine that relaxes the muscle wrapped around the airways so they widen and air moves more freely. It relieves wheeze and breathlessness within minutes but does nothing about the underlying inflammation.Read the full definition for symptoms and attacks; the preventer contains an inhaled corticosteroidCorticosteroidCorticosteroids are medicines related to cortisol, the body's own stress hormone, and they are the most powerful suppressors of inflammation in general use. They are not the muscle-building steroids of the gym, which are a different class of drug entirely.Read the full definition and is taken every day whether or not you feel well. Wash the plastic casing weekly, keep track of doses used, and ask a pharmacist or nurse to watch you use it at least once a year.