I was just wondering. If your not really having major symptoms, do you have to use your daily inhaler all the time. I use symbacort for my daily 2x's daily every 12hrs. plus I have a rescue inhaler. I haven't been using my daily as I should. But my asthma symptoms aren't nearly as bad as they used to be. But when I feel it's getting a bit hard to breathe I will use it. Mostly at night when needed. Is this bad? Laura
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3 things
1. it generally takes about 2 weeks for the medicine in asthma controller meds to get into your system. So you can start taking them when you're sick, but you won't be getting the full effect.
2. The inhaled corticosteroid in Symbicort helps to control the chronic inflammation in your air passages. By doing this, by taking it every day, even if you get a cold or are exposed to your asthma triggers, your asthma will should stay in control. Or, at the very least, easier to get back into control.
3. The inhaled corticosteroid also creates more receptor sites for your rescue medicine (such as Ventolin) to attach to. This makes it so when you use your rescue medicine it works better.
You can definitely gamble and stop using your asthma controller medicines, so long as you are aware of the risks.
As a rule of thumb, I wouldn't stop taking your asthma controller medicines unless you have the permission of your physician.