Asthma is a chronic lung disease that narrows and inflames the airways. It results in recurring periods of coughing, chest tightness, shortness of breath and wheezing. It is believed that asthma is caused by a complex interaction of genetic factors and environmental factors. This condition afflicts people of any age group but is more prominent during childhood.
Asthma Inhalers:
An asthma inhaler is a hand-held device that provides asthma medicine directly into the airways. Medicines may be taken intravenously and orally, but medication goes into the lungs directly if taken through inhalers and also gives quick relief from the symptoms with less side effects.
Types of Asthma Inhalers:
There are several varieties of inhalers available in today’s market. These inhalers are categorised into two:
Dry Powder Inhalers (DPI): These don’t have a gas propellant for propelling the drug out of a canister. Every dose has a little amount of drug in the form of powder, that an asthmatic has to inhale. An asthmatic has to inhale deeply to get powder into the lungs directly. Most children and adults find it easy while young children finds it difficult to breathe very hard to suck the powder. These DPI’s can be difficult to use while suffering from an asthma attack. This is so because deep breathing becomes very difficult at that times. However, some patients find it easy compared to metered dose inhalers. Various dry powder inhalers include single-dose dry powder disk inhaler, powder disk inhaler and dry powder tube inhaler. One need not use spacers when using inhalers.
Metered Dose Inhalers (MDI): These use a chemical propellant for propelling an evaluated dose of medicine out of the inhaler. MDIs consists of a mouth piece, pressurized canister comprising of medicine and a meter valve that dispenses the right amount of medicine. The medication is released either by squeezing or inhaling the canister. Some inhalers contain counters for knowing the number of dosages. If these counters are not available, one has to keep track of the doses. Mostly MDIs contain chloroflourocarbon (CFC) as the chemical propellant. As CFC harms the ozone layer, now hydroflouroalkane (HFA) is used. The medication which HFA inhalers release is more warm, soft and reaches the lungs directly.
