Asthma is a common disease that endangers people’s health. In China, the incidence of asthma is increasing year by year, but many patients still have misunderstandings about asthma, which affects the correct diagnosis and timely treatment of asthma. Let’s take stock of several “minefields” that asthma patients should not step on. 1.Myth: Asthma only needs to be treated when there is an attack, but there is no need for medication if there are no symptoms. Asthma is a chronic and recurrent disease that requires long-term treatment. Many patients only remember to use medication when they have an asthma attack and do not use any medication during the remission period. Such recurrent asthma attacks will cause serious damage to the patient’s lung function over time, causing serious complications such as emphysema and pulmonary heart disease, and even developing into chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In fact, the real cause of asthma is chronic airway inflammation. After using relieving drugs, although the symptoms disappear, airway inflammation can persist. It is like the tip of an iceberg exposed on the surface of the sea, and there is actually a much larger iceberg hidden under the surface. Therefore, when you have asthma, it is important to use medications to control airway inflammation, such as inhaled glucocorticoids, to prevent asthma attacks. As for the specific dosage and course of medication, you should go to a regular medical institution for evaluation and then listen to your doctor’s advice, and do not take the medication or reduce the dosage without permission. 2.Myth: The side effects of hormones are too great, and I heard that long-term application will cause obesity and may cause osteoporosis and other diseases, so it is better to switch to other drugs or use them less. A considerable number of patients heard that asthma requires long-term hormone inhalation for treatment, and they are worried that the side effects of hormones will cause harm to their bodies, especially women and children, who are afraid that long-term hormone inhalation will make them fat or affect their growth and development, so they take half or even lower doses as prescribed by the doctor. They are afraid that long-term hormone inhalation will make them fat or affect their growth and development. In fact, inhaled glucocorticosteroids are currently recognized as the most effective and safe treatment for asthma. In inhaled hormone therapy, the drug acts directly on the airway through the mouth, which requires a much smaller dose than oral administration, and the concentration of the drug absorbed into the blood circulation is smaller, so long-term use of inhaled hormone therapy generally does not cause systemic side effects. Some patients may have some throat symptoms after using the drug, such as hoarseness, thrush, etc. This can be avoided by deep gargling of the throat after using the drug. 3. Myth: No one in my family has a history of getting asthma, although I cough all the time, so it should be a cold or pneumonia, and I should just take some antibiotics. Many patients, due to insufficient knowledge of the disease, believe that they will not get asthma if they do not have a family history of asthma, and treat recurrent episodes of cough, wheezing, runny nose, sneezing and other symptoms as a common cold or pneumonia, and repeatedly use antibiotics without targeted treatment for asthma. In fact, colds and pneumonia are often caused by viruses and bacteria, while the chronic airway inflammation that causes asthma is a metabolic inflammation, unlike the inflammation caused by bacterial infections, and therefore treatment with antibiotics is ineffective. According to the latest guidelines for asthma prevention and treatment, when a patient has repeated (multiple) symptoms such as wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness or cough (some patients only have symptoms such as cough or chest tightness; symptoms can be caused by exercise, laughing, allergens, cold air, cold and flu viruses), and these symptoms are worse at night and in the morning, they need to take the initiative to go to a regular hospital for pulmonary function and other tests to further clarify whether they have asthma. Once the diagnosis is confirmed, long-term standardized treatment should be started instead of blindly applying antibiotics. Many patients have a misconception that pulmonary function tests are used to confirm the diagnosis of asthma, and once the diagnosis is confirmed, there is no need to check the pulmonary function again. In fact, in addition to confirming asthma, pulmonary function tests can also help us understand how well our asthma has been controlled recently and how well the medication is working. In case of poor control, it can also prompt the doctor to find the cause and solve it early, which is very important for the control of the disease. Therefore, in addition to the medication, patients with bronchial asthma should also have their lung function checked regularly in order to prevent the occurrence of acute asthma attacks.