Lung Health: Importance of Maintenance Medications

Taking the medicines prescribed by your doctor, or maintenance medications, is important for controlling chronic or long-term respiratory illnesses. Common chronic respiratory diseases, which affect the airways and other parts of the lung, include asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), among others.

Taking your maintenance medications as prescribed by your doctor is called medication adherence. Medication adherence is vital to slowing the progression of your chronic respiratory disease, improving your symptoms, minimizing hospitalization, and ultimately prolonging your life.

Maintenance for chronic respiratory diseases medications should only be taken upon a doctor’s advice and prescription. Some maintenance medications for chronic respiratory diseases include:

• Bronchodilators open the airways to make breathing easier and are ideally administered by a puffer.
• Corticosteroids reduce inflammation and swelling of lung tissue. This medication is usually given by a puffer to minimize the risk of side effects.

Experts offer the following medication adherence tips for people with chronic respiratory conditions:

• Take your medication at the same time every day.
• Tie taking your medications with a daily routine like brushing your teeth or getting ready for bed.
• For children or older adults, using a spacer with an inhaler might make it easier to inhale the full dose. This is essential to ensuring that the medicine reaches your lungs, which is the main goal of inhaled therapy.
• Some inhalers have built-in spacers. Spacers temporarily hold the released medicine, allowing the patient to inhale slowly, deeply, and at their own pace to get the full dose into their lungs.

Talk to your doctor if you’re having trouble using your inhaler, or if you feel like you’re not getting enough medication.

Shop at Watsons for maintenance medications prescribed by your doctor and other essential healthcare products.  Consult your doctor for more information on how to keep your lungs healthy.

References:

1. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/special-features/why-you-need-take-your-medications-prescribed-or-instructed. Accessed 12 June 2020
2. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/lung-conditions-chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease-copd. Accessed 12 June 2020
3. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/chronic-diseases/chronic-respiratory-diseases.html. Accessed 12 June 2020
4. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/asthma/in-depth/asthma-inhalers/art-20046382. Accessed 19 June 2020
5. https://www.everydayhealth.com/asthma/guide/treatment/. Accessed 19 June 2020