Chances are if you have asthma you have some degree of chronic (it's always there) inflammation in your air passages. Studies have proven the best and safest way of treating this inflammation is daily use of inhaled corticosteroids.
Inhaled corticosteroids are now a top line treatment for asthma proven to reduce inflammation in your lungs. In this way, the medicine controls and prevents asthma.
There are a lot of inhaled corticosteroids on the market, so the trick is to find the one that works best for your asthma.
Basically, how much inflamation is present in your lungs determines how severe your asthma is. A little inflammation may be easily treatable with just your basic inhaled steroid -- like beclamethasone.
Yet if you have a great deal of inflammation a basic inhaled steroid may not be enough, and you may require a stronger inhaled corticosteroid, or even a combination medicine like Advair to control your asthma.
The following is a list of all the inhaled corticosteroids followed by my professional and personal advice (experience) using that product. Here we go:
Basic Inhaled Steroids:
Beclomethasone (Vanceril, Beclovent, Qvar): This was the first inhaled steroid to hit the market in the 1960s. It was almost written off until a report was released in 1971 showing it's effectiveness for treating asthma. I was on this mecicine during the 70s and 80s. It's the least expensive, so if it works that's great. Yet if your asthma continues to act up, there are far better inhaled steroids on the market.
Note: Some studies might renew interest in medicine due to studies showing QVAR is smaller and gets deeper into the lungs for more equal distribution of the medicine. Whether these studies will amount to anything is yet to be seen, although some suggest this medicine may prove useful for hardluck asthma. You can read more here.
Flunisolide (Aerobid): Good inhaled steroid but tastes like rotton mints. I took one puff of this inhaler about 20 years ago and tossed in the trash. It's one of the medicines phased out when CFC inhalers lost favor.
Mometasone furoate (Asmanex): It's a once a day medicine, or twice a day if need be. I've never experienced it so I'll leave this space open for you guys to fill in.
Triamcinolone (Azmacort): It's was a good inhaled steroid in it's day, but you had to take four puffs four times a day to equal the potency of Flovent. This made compliance a problem. It's the inhaled steroid I used from 1985 to 1998. It tasted good (if that's posible for an inhaler), yet never as effective as modern medicines. This probably weighted into the decision to stop manufacture of it.
Fluticasone propronate (Flovent): A very good inhaled steroid. The nice thing about Flovent is two puffs twice a day is far better than four puffs four times a day. It makes for better compliance. It's potent and safe. I recommend it. If it doesn't work try Advair. My asthma greatly improved when I switch to flovent in 1998. I was on this medicine until I was introduced to Advair in 2004.
