How compliant are you with your asthma medication regimen? Depending on where you look, noncompliance with asthma regimens ranges from 10-46%. According to Katie M Buston and Stuart F Wood of the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, Scotland, patients commonly cite the following as reasons for non-compliance:
- forgetfulness
- belief that asthma medication is ineffective
- denial that one is an asthmatic
- difficulty using asthma inhalers
- inconvenience
- fear of medication side effects
- embarrassment and laziness
So how compliant are you? Why not leave a comment and let us know what causes you to miss your asthma meds.
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I find that not taking my asthma meds according to my doctors directions results in more frequent incidents of asthma symptoms. Luckily I have not experienced an attack so severe it required a trip to the ER. I attribute this to my diligence with taking the medicine to treat the asthma. If you have ever had the test for asthma, the so-called “Methacholine Challenge” then you know what a severe asthma attack feels like and how helpless it makes you feel. I never forget my controller medicines, and I have several combivent inhalers scattered about to always have it available should an allergen set off an attack.