Physical activity:
- Be sure to tell people who exercise with you that you have asthma.
- Always carry your quick-relief inhaler when you exercise.
How to treat asthma attacks during exercise:
If you experience an asthma flare-up or attack during physical activity, stop immediately, use your quick-relief inhaler, and wait until your symptoms subside and you feel better before starting again.
Asthma medications:
A. Pills and capsules:
Most of them are used once or twice a day, so the patient can use them during breakfast or suhoor and thus will not face difficulty in fasting.
B. Inhalers:
1.Gas Inhaler (propellants):
- Bronchodilators (such as Ventolin): This is very necessary to prevent suffocation, and is taken during the day when needed because it does not break the fast.
- Preventive inhalers: These are necessary in the long term, as they improve the efficiency of the bronchi, but they are not emergency treatment, so they can be delayed until night (between breakfast and suhoor
2. Dry Powder Inhaler:
It works like the gaseous type, except that it is powdered like flour, so those who are used to it can stop taking it temporarily during Ramadan and take the gas spray.
3. Steam Inhaler:
It is used in emergency cases, where the medicine is placed with a distilled water solution in a vaporizer, connected to a nasal mask, which the patient places on his nose and mouth to inhale the medicine. This is an emergency treatment, so if the patient needs it, he should take it and break his fast and make it up later, although it can be replaced with repeated, successive quantities of a gas spray that gives the same result.
4. Oxygen Inhaler:
It is called a “cylinder” because oxygen usually comes in cylinders connected to a tube with a mask that delivers oxygen at a specific concentration according to the patient’s need, and it is not usually mixed with anything else. It does not break fasting because it is the same oxygen that is in the air.
Your Medicine in Ramadan