How much do you know about adjusting the dose of your asthma medication?

  1.Escalation method First give lower level of treatment, if the efficacy is not good, timely “upgrade”, effective maintenance for more than 3 months, and then gradually downgrade. It is suitable for patients with mild asthma.  2.Downgrading method First give more adequate treatment, so that the asthma condition can be controlled in time, and then gradually downgrade. It is suitable for patients with severe asthma.  3.Downgrading method of combination therapy Firstly, reduce the dose of inhaled hormone in the combination program, then reduce the long-acting beta agonist (LABA), and then use small dose of inhaled hormone alone and gradually reduce the amount of inhaled hormone until stopping.  4.Adjustable dose” (ADM) and “fixed dose” (FM) of combination therapy The currently used Sulidex belongs to FM, and it is difficult to adjust the dose in time when the disease changes. The forthcoming compounded dry powder formulation, Symbicort, is an effective, safe, and easily adjustable dose for asthma treatment. There are two opinions on the time to start downgrading: (1) complete control of asthma for more than 7 d; (2) complete control of asthma for more than 3 to 6 months. More studies should be conducted to gain more experience in this regard. The current preference is to start downgrading after 3 months of complete asthma control.