Asthma patients should take care to use their medicines regularly

Private Denizli Tekden Hospital Chest Diseases Specialist Dr. Aslıhan Banu Er warned that asthma patients should take care to use their inhaler medications and have regular check-ups.

Stating that asthma is a disease characterized by prolonged cough, sputum wheezing, chest pain and shortness of breath with exertion, Private Denizli Tekden Hospital Specialist Dr. Aslıhan Banu Er warned patients that patients should pay attention to using inhaler medications and use them regularly. Stating that the patient's complaints are primarily important when diagnosing asthma, Dr. Banu Er said, “We evaluate it with chest X-ray and breathing test. However, since it is a variable airway disease, asthma may not be diagnosed in every respiratory test. Here, the patient's clinical complaints are more important for us. Since there is a variable airway, sometimes the respiratory test may come back normal. But this does not mean that there is no asthma.”

Stating that asthma patients have problems with treatment compliance, Dr. Banu Er said, “Since there is variable airway stenosis, the patient does not want to use his inhaler when there is no airway stenosis. However, in the studies conducted, it has been determined that the secretion, which we call infilamation in the airways, where white cells stick there, continues in the periods when they do not use treatment in secretory asthma diseases and that changes will occur here that will cause permanent airway stenosis in the future. I would like to give an example from a patient. This patient is an asthma patient who has been in my follow-up for two years. However, he persistently did not want to use his inhaler. He claimed that he was very relieved when he used conifer syrup and similar herbal products. However, we performed bronchoscopy on our patient due to a suspicious polyp-like lesion in the airway in a different tomography scan. As we saw in bronchoscopy, we observed adherent secretions from diffuse secretions in both airways. We aspirated them in bronchoscopy. If the patient does not use the inhaler properly, then these secretions will recur.”

Dr. Banu Er said, “If you have been diagnosed with asthma even once in your life or if you have complaints similar to the complaints we have listed, we are definitely waiting for you in our pulmonology clinic and I recommend that the annual follow-up of the patient diagnosed with asthma every 6 months should not be performed by pulmonologists.”