Do asthma attacks always kill without medication, or can it get better by itself?

I thought that all asthma was relative to the individual and that not all bronchiospasms were severe. Is it possible to have an attack or have asthma, and not take your meds, and have it all return back to normal? Or is this usually not the case, and will only further damage your lungs?

I try to fight it, and ignore it, and just live life pretending I don't have it, but it literally chokes me to the point where I feel like falling over because I just can't focus. I can't breathe.

The meds help temporarily but within half a day it's back to square 1.

Is there anyway to manage this crappy illness?

So far only prednisone seems to be helping ALOT. THe rest of the drugs I don't know. Also WHY when you have asthma at least in MY condition, does the squeezing start in the lower chest. Is that the diaphragm?

Also, are you allowed to eat sugary foods on prednisone? Because the sugar seems to affect me 5 times as much. lol.

These are the meds that I'm currently on:
Additional Details
Singulair/Claritin = these seem to be total B*llshit. No offense. They just don't seem to work!

Atrovent= works to a degree,but nothing too significant really. But does seem to do SOMETHING

Advair= makes me feel woozy, and I'm sure it helps in higher doses, but I'm not really sure how much it really does, though I definitely feel it burning in my chest upon taking it.

Prendisone= the miracle drug. WHen all else fails, THIS really helps, not 100% but quite a bit!

xopenex= helps, and I feel it in my chest as its working, but not as good as albuterol

Albuterol = works short term but, crap side effects.

ANy better meds than these?

Am i taking too much?

or the wrong ones?

After taking ALL of these meds,
I still get asthma.

Its unbelievable lol.

angeliceyfire	i had asthma for 10 yrs.... i started do lung exercises and now its gone :) hope u find a med that works i had same problems with meds thats what lead me to the exercises gl

nitebearer	Is it possible to survive an attack without meds??? Well really it depends on the severity. Yes is the answer to mild and those brought on by certain conditions. These do depend on the person as well. If your attacks are always severe then taking the meds would be the thing to do. Find a med that helps with as few side effects as possible. My medication (when I needed it) only reduced the breathing problem not eliminated it. SO I suffered with hard breathing for an hour but at least it was breathing. Slowly things went back to normal. There were times when I had attacks and no meds with me so I suffered. I did learn that relaxing and just working on breathing worked better than anything else to recover enough to move. If yours is severe then use the meds. They do help and if it slows you down for an hour, so be it. Better that then going to a hospital.

mzgeisha@sbcglobal.net	All drugs for asthma have side effects, you have to learn to live with the side effects if you expect to have a long life. When you are having an asthma attack your organs, cells and blood are being deprived of oxygen. Do not do this to yourself.

rcervantes13	I am 32 years old and have had asthma since I was 26. Out of nowhere! So, I understand your pain and frustation. I have learned alot about asthma but the most important thing u need to know right now is: Once you are diagnosed with Asthma, It will never go away; u can improve and have it under complete control but with the right meds and follow up with a specialitst; not just a regular physician. And u must take your prescribed Meds. I gained control of my asthma when I started seeing an immunologist/asthma & allergy specialist. Have u been tested for allergens that may be causing your bronchial spasms? When u say that u feel like falling over, cant focus, cant breathe. That's what's going to happen. You will stop breathing, fall over and die of an asthma attack-IF U DON'T GET ASTHMA UNDER CONTROL. Don't ignore it. I too take Advair500/50 (once @ am & once @pm; then Singulair @ night. When absolutely necessary I get Medrol from my Dr. It is stronger than prednisone. Much more effective; but this should only be during periods of major wheezing that keeps u up @ night or allergy seasons. U can email me anytime @ kfireangels@hotmail.com Since I developed asthma, I went to school to become a nurse; now I work for a Doctor and continue to learn alot about illnesses and medications. Feel free to ask me anything about your condition and if I don't know; I will find out. Good Luck. Take Care. Love, Karen

busybee2	without meds you are playing russian roulette. Also irreversible damage is being done to your bronchials which raises your risk of COPD and lung cancer in later life. If allergies are not contributing to your asthma then you are right singular and claritin wont do anything. Singular helps block lueketrienes released by the lungs in response to stimuli in 2/3's of people with asthma..and claritin helps block histimines released by the sinuses in response to stimuli. Advair helps treat the underlying inflammation that is one of the two components of asthma. It also has a long lasting bronchodialator to help with bronchospasms. You may need to take the higher dosages for it to be effective. It may be that you need a longer and higher dosage of oral steroid to get the inflammation cleared up to begin with so the Advair can then work (for instance with severe flares my son will sometimes get an original dosage of 100 mgs of prednisone followed by 60 mgs a day for 7 days then taken down by 10 mgs daily until at 0) Are you seeing a pulmonologist? Have they ran pfts? Have you had allergy testing? Have they checked for GERD as a contributor? Have they checked for a chronic sinus infection? If not these things should be done. Sometimes silent GERD is keeping the asthma from being controlled and the diagnosis of GERD is the VIOLA! piece of info needed to get your asthma under control. please go to: http://asthma.about.com and start taking back control of your life. education about asthma is the key to living with asthma instead of just existing with asthma.

wezy53154	By the symptoms that you've described you could probably be classified as severe persistent asthma. This means that you not only need daily antiinflamatory medication (singular), but controller medication for the bronchospasm (Advair which comes in four strengths). In addition to that you need to have at your disposable supplimental nebulizers at home for when you are really bad and portible inhalers for when you are away. Or course this also assumes that you are using the inhaler correctly and via a spacing device to make sure you are getting as much of the medication as you can into the lungs. When the airways of the lungs are irritated and become swellen they have only one way to go, inward. The 'squeezing' starts in the lower chest because the terminal airways are the smallest and the most effected. This causes in turn air trapping and a tight feeling in the chest. So, no it's not your diaphragm. As to the sugary foods your eating while on prednisone. Remember that it is a corticosteriod and as such will elevate your blood sugars in and of itself. Now when you eat a hogh sugar food item the steriod is throughing your pancreas and other hormones out of whack and messes with the sugar transference mechanism that is supposed to be pulling it out of the blood stream and into the cells of the body for fuel. This is kind of simular to what a diabetic goes through. Finally, I'd like to address you comment about the xopenex on your list of medications. Xopenex is one of the more recent additions. Its formulary name is levalbuterol. Regular albuterol is made up of two isomers, a left and a right. While both do the same thing, open the airways, one side of the isomer has somewhat less cardiac stimulation if you are using the 0.63 mg dose. This particular side is the Xopenex if you read the literature presented at many of the dinners put on by the drug companies that I have attended in the past 3-4 years houw ever, using 1.25 mg regular albuterol with the two isomers combined will do exactly the same thing. It's the higher dosages that have the cardiac effects. In closing, let me remind you that breathing like a heart beat is what is keeping you alive. If you can't breath, you can't live. Take your medications, see a board certified pulmonologist at least once a year. Eat a high protein, low carbohydrate and exercise at least five days a week.