There are 2 main types or groups of medicines used in asthma: Relievers and controllers. Reliever medications are only used when needed to quickly relieve asthma symptoms. Controller medications are used everyday to maintain health and to prevent asthma symptoms from re-occurring.
Everybody’s asthma is different. Some people only need to take a reliever medicine once in a while and their asthma is perfectly well controlled. Other people need to take one or more daily controller medicines, in addition to their reliever medicine, to control their asthma.
The amount and types of medicine that children may need can also change over time. Most people’s asthma will change back and forth throughout the year. For example, a lot of kids’ asthma is worse in the winter or around the time school starts. They may need more medicine at these times of the year and less medicines at other times of the year. Everyone follows a different pattern.
Only you and your clinician can find out what are the best medicines for your child. The following tables give a summary of the different asthma medicines available. Follow the links on the right for more charts.
What Medicines Should be Used?
Once you’ve found out how severe your asthma is, you can get an idea of how much medicine will be needed to control the asthma symptoms.
| Classification | Primary and/or Secondary Controller Medicine | Reliever Medicine |
| Mild intermittent | NONE | Albuterol every 4 hours IF NEEDED |
| Mild persistent | Low dose of a primary controller |
Albuterol every 4 hours IF NEEDED |
| Moderate persistent | Medium dose of a primary controller and/or a secondary controller | Albuterol every 4 hours IF NEEDED |
| Severe persistent | High dose of primary controller(s), and one or more secondary controllers | Albuterol every 4 hours IF NEEDED |
