Doctors Office

Take your child to the doctor for regular checkups and treatments. As a team you, your child and their doctor can control asthma symptoms. Talk to the doctor about medications and triggers. Work together to create an Asthma Action Plan. The doctor may have one to fill out, or print this sample Asthma Action Plan.

Your child’s asthma attacks may be caused by an allergy. Have the doctor do an allergy test. Other things may irritate your child’s asthma causing the attacks, like smoke or exercise. Keep an asthma diary, where you write about each asthma attack: when, where, what and why. Talk to your child’s doctor about the results.

When- When did the attack happen? What time of day or night?
Where- Where was your child: at home, school, car, outside?
What- What was your child doing when the asthma attack started? Sometimes it can take hours for symptoms to start after contact to a trigger.
Why- Try to guess the reason for the asthma attack. Was your child sleeping or exercising? Had your child been around secondhand smoke?

Medication may help control asthma symptoms. There are two common types of asthma medication: quick-relief and long-term control.

• Quick-relief medications are used during an attack to relax the muscles in the lungs and give fast relief.

• Long-term control medications help prevent asthma attacks.

Talk to your child’s doctor about the right combination for your child. It’s important your child takes medications as prescribed, even if your child has not had asthma symptoms in a long time. Know when to replace inhalers. For example, if an inhaler has 200 puffs and your child takes 2-4 puffs per day, you will need to replace the inhaler every 100-50 days.

If your child knows how to use their inhaler, they can carry and use it at school. A written authorization form, signed by your child’s doctor, must be turned into the school at the beginning of each school year. The Indiana Chronic Disease Management Program website has a Permission to Carry Asthma Medicine to School Contract form to use. Check your child’s inhaler often and have easy access to an extra inhaler.

Peak flow meters are used to measure how quickly the air moves out of the lungs. During an asthma attack airways in the lungs narrow, making it harder to move air in and out of the lungs. Use the peak flow meter often to catch an asthma attack before it happens. A low reading shows the lung airways are smaller than normal. If your child has trouble using their inhaler, a spacer can be used. Spacers help get the mist from the inhaler to the lungs.

For more helpful medical information about asthma, go to the Indiana Chronic Disease Management Program website.