Asthmatics can live without having asthma —Experts

Though asthma is a long-term disease, asthmatics can live a life without having asthma if they avoid their triggers and comply with their inhaled medications.

Professor Gregory Erhabor, an asthma expert, made this disclosure at the 2025 World Asthma Day celebration by the Asthma and Chest Care Foundation in collaboration with the respiratory unit of the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC), Ile Ife.

Erhabor stated that the main thrust of asthma management is to use a combination therapy that acts as both a preventer and a reliever of asthma attacks and the progression of the disease.

 He said the symptoms of asthma are not what should be focused on but the underlying mechanism that causes asthma, which is the underlying inflammation.

“Asthma is not like I had no asthma attack, and I’m cured. The underlying inflammation continues and may actually progress even when the patient is not having a visible attack, and that will lead to the airway becoming damaged. The architecture of the airway is disrupted. We don’t want them to be like that.

“So in treating asthma, you look at this drug that will take care of the inflammation and the episodic attack.

“Over time, we have changed from just looking at asthma as one drug for everybody; we are now looking at what we call individualised therapy.

“Also, asthmatics should study their own asthma and avoid as much as possible things that trigger their asthma. They should come to the hospital when they have problems, and they should not treat themselves.

“Asthma death can be vastly preventable, and so they shouldn’t allow themselves to feel so bad that they’re not able to move forward in life.”

Professor Olayemi Awopeju, also a respiratory medicine physician, said that it was disturbing that many asthmatics are unable to buy their inhaled drugs, even when they are not scarce.

According to her, some genes have been established to increase an individual’s susceptibility to asthma, but it only plays out in the right environment and presence of its trigger.

Dr Feyi Kehinde, also a chest physician, said symptoms of asthma are often episodic, variable, and oftentimes are nocturnal predominant.

According to her, asthma’s core symptoms, which are cough, chest tightness, wheeze and difficulty breathing, could be triggered by many factors, including smoke, dust, industrial pollution, pollens, cockroaches, and changes in weather.

Dr Kehinde added that asthma sometimes occurs in association with other spectra of allergic diseases like allergic rhinitis, allergic conjunctivitis, atopic dermatitis, chronic obstructive lung diseasese and gastro-oesophageal reflux disease.

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