If you are taking asthma control medications but you are still experiencing significant asthma symptoms, it may be time for you to talk to your doctor about how you can get better control over your asthma. Similarly, if you have asthma but you are only using fast acting inhalers to treat your symptoms instead of longer-acting control medication, you may also want to talk to your doctor about adjusting your medication.

If you and your doctor have already developed an asthma action plan (also called an asthma management or asthma control plan), guidelines may be included in the plan that tell you how and when to take more of your prescribed medications. However, you should NEVER take more medication than is specifically prescribed in an asthma action plan. If you are still experiencing symptoms after following the asthma action plan, you should make an appointment with your doctor to make changes to the plan to help reduce your symptoms and the impact that they are having on your life. If your symptoms don’t meet the criteria of “controlled” asthma (listed above) your doctor should be able to adjust your asthma action plan to try to help you get your symptoms under controlled.