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How to Manage Your Asthma with Spacers

How to Manage Your Asthma with Spacers

How to manage your asthma with spacers?

Administrating respiratory medicine, is not always an easy task. Especially for kids who don’t want to take a break or elderly adults that have difficulty releasing the mist medication straight from their inhaler.

In that case, the use of a spacer to distribute the medication to the lungs is vital.

In this blog, we discuss how spacers work, their benefits, and which ones to use. Everything you need to know to manage your asthma.

 Woman with nebuliser mask

What is asthma?

Asthma is an inflammatory disease of the airways in the lungs. Due to swelling of the airways with certain triggers, the muscle in the airway tightens and the airway lining becomes swollen and inflamed, producing sticky mucus.

Many children and adults who need respiratory medication can experience asthma attacks that occur very suddenly and can sometimes be life-threatening. Getting their medication straight to their lungs is of crucial importance.

While nebulisers and MDI's (Metered Dose Inhalers) are very helpful, a spacer can be the best way to administer life-saving respiratory medicine.

 

Spacers for Asthma Treatment

What is a spacer and what are the benefits?

A spacer is a special respiratory device designed to create a temporary space to hold the medication before you inhale it. It is attached to a MDI or puffer to make it easier to use. A spacer – or holding chamber - helps to get the best out of MDI's as the medicine is delivered straight into the lungs.

The benefit of a spacer is that the patient doesn’t need to inhale at the exact time of dispensing the medication, meaning he or she can inhale at their own pace. Some spacers come with masks to help small children or those who cannot breathe through a standard spacer.

Studies have shown that a spacer makes an inhaler work 75% more efficient! At the same time, it reduces the side effects and improves coordination.

 

Most people living with asthma use MDI’s. A flaw of these inhalers or puffers is that the medicine is sprayed so hard and fast into the mouth, that most of the medicine crashes into your upper airway instead of getting into your air passages.

 

Any medication you can taste in your mouth is medicine that hasn’t reached your lungs and that you swallow, causing systemic side effects.

Another problem users have from inhalers is ‘coordination’: patients can be either too early or too late. Most asthmatics are too fast. All these coordination issues result in less effective medicine intake.

 

A spacer helps slow down the force of the medication spray, meaning that the medicine doesn’t impact your upper airway as much. It also improves the coordination and makes the puffer easier to use. You use less medicine, without wastage.

 

Some spacers' design has incorporated a whistle that tells you, you have inhaled too fast: it teaches you to inhale slowly and smoothly.

 

 

How to use a spacer?

 

To manage the asthma symptoms, fire one puff of medication at a time into the spacer. You can now breathe in and out normally for four breaths. This way more medication reaches the lungs.

If you are looking for highly effective and affordable spacers to manage your asthma efficiently, we have a range of spacers you can select from, for adults and children:

             Able Spacer™ with Flo-Tone whistle - Able Asthma          

Able Spacer with Flo-Tone whistle – AbleAsthma

 

 

                 Able Spacer™ with whistle and small size mask for children - Able Asthma       

Able Spacer™ with Whistle and Mask for children – AbleAsthma

 

It is essential to understand that a puffer with a spacer is also an easier, faster, and cheaper way to take asthma medication.  Moreover, spacers are much more portable and reduce the potential for side effects.

Child with spacer

Consult your healthcare professional about purchasing a spacer at a cost-effective price. 

 

Reliever Medication for Asthma

For quick and effective relief from asthma symptoms, reliever medication effectively opens up the airways quickly and is taken as needed. It is important to understand that this medication is used in an asthma flare-up or emergency.

Woman with spacer_bettercaremarket

Preventer Medication for Asthma

A preventer treatment for Asthma will reduce the inflammation inside the airways.

Preventative medication for chronic lung disease treatment should be taken every day, over the long term, to be effective. You should keep taking the preventer even when you have no symptoms and also during colds and asthma flare-ups.

 

Inhalers for Asthma Medication

It is important to understand that there are different devices that can deliver asthma medication.

Generally, medication of asthma management is inhaled or breathes in, so it can go straight to your lungs where it is needed, making it to work quickly. In order to decide which inhalers are best for you, you should work together with your GP or lung specialist. 

Asthma medication

Depending on your condition and age, a nebuliser is the perfect repsiratory device for long-term maintenance.

 

          Actineb 2000 nebuliser - Medix             

Actineb AC2000 Nebuliser – Medix

 

 

 

Mini Nebuliser - Able                       

 

Actineb Mini Nebuliser – Able

 

 

 

 

                       Clinical Compressor Nebuliser

Clinical Compressor Nebuliser

 

 

Wymedical Mesh Nebuliser_bettercaremarket                       

 

WyMedical Portable Mesh Nebuliser - Able Asthma 

 

 

 

 

These products are no longer the recommended way for most people to take their asthma medications. According to the latest research, it was reported that a puffer with spacer works just as well as a nebuliser in order to treat asthma symptoms, even during an asthma attack.

To conclude

A spacer is a very useful respiratory device that has proven to improve the effectiveness of MDI's or puffers drastically, reduce the side effects of the medication and develop coordination.