In this video I discuss about choosing an inhaler which is adapted to each patient. There are many inhalers for asthma and COPD available, however some people find some devices hard to use and therefore have poor inhaler technique. This results in suboptimal benefits despite using the newest inhalers available.
Hello everyone in this video i’d like to discuss about a question that i get asked a lot which is which is the best inhaler many patients will ask me this question which inhaler should they be on should they be on a different inhaler if for example they’re on symbicort should they be on foster should they be on serotype should they be on any of the new inhalers
Really that’s a very tough question for me to to answer because there are a lot of inhalers now and there’s a lot of competition between the companies which produce them so in this video i’d like to show you this back i have a bag this is my handy nifty bag of demonstrator devices so i’m just gonna put it on my desk and show you what i mean by this being the
Tough choice right so there’s a lot of them i don’t know if you can see them next to the mic here but how do we choose one from this myriad of inhalers and to be frank with you the simple answer is that it doesn’t matter this may be shocking to many of you what matters first and this is really the most important thing is how you use these things because you
Can be prescribed the best inhaler the most revolutionary device the newest inhaler on the market but if you don’t know how to use it correctly it amounts to nothing it’s probably worse than one of the old ones really all of these are medical devices so if you look at them they all have different ways of operation you arm them in different ways you activate them
In different ways and then you inhale so all these things are completely different from one device to the next so sometimes actually switching to a new inhaler can present a problem because you might end up in a situation where you don’t know how to use the new device and your for example asthma control actually gets worse because you’re not getting the same
Benefit as you would have had with the old one so really technique inhaler technique is the most important really and if you get that right you’re one step closer to having the best treatment that you can have and the other thing to mention is most of these inhalers they’re not perfect medications so they won’t heal you they won’t get rid of all the problems
That you have generally your symptoms will improve you might feel a lot better on inhalers say your copd might be much easier to bear or your asthma might be well controlled but the condition itself doesn’t really go away like i said the first thing is really to have the best symptomatic benefit that you can have and you can achieve that generally by having
The proper inhaler technique even if you’re not on the most up-to-date inhaler the newest inhaler if it works for you if your life is okay if your quality of life is fine on the inhaler please continue on it and just see your doctor regularly to see if there’s any need for a change if there’s anything new if your lung function is going down if there’s anything
That’s that’s changed really that would warrant a change in your inhaler but obviously keep in touch with your doctor about new inhalers because sometimes you might switch to one that might actually make you feel a lot better or you may have fewer side effects with a different device but just to show you a couple of these options so really some of these inhalers
We can group in different categories because for example you have the reliever inhalers such as the old ventilate the trusted ventilatin salbutamol blue inhaler whatever it’s blue-green whatever but like this one this one many people use this inhaler it’s been around now for decades and it’s amazing you don’t need anything else for example for very mild cases of
Asthma which are maybe only exercise induced or if you just need a bit of relief a bit of extra relief on top of your other medications this is still a great inhaler if you can use it correctly then you have the the likes of for example symbicort or foster different type of foster or then the serotide what else do we have here let’s see this four sphero device
Which is pretty much like a ceratide but a generic form and then all all these for example they do pretty much the same thing they contain two substances inside their combination inhaler they have a bronchodilator so a medication that opens up the airways and that which lasts for maybe about 12 hours and an anti-inflammatory drug which is a corticosteroids all of
These contain the same sort of combination maybe this slightly different medications but with the same pharmacological effect then you have devices like the handihaler or the zonda device so these work with little capsules that you have to put inside the inhaler crush them and then inhale the powder and these usually last for quite a long time so about 24 hours
There are newer inhalers as well that i don’t have here on the table which contain three medications inside so they contain the corticosteroid the anti-inflammatory and then two different medications that open up the airways that have a synergistic effect the choice of an inhaler is very getting to be very very complicated but like i always say to to patients it
Doesn’t really matter which device you’re on as long as you’re feeling well it’s important to choose a device that’s right for you there is such a thing as the best inhaler for you not necessarily the best inhaler according to medical knowledge and scientific publications if you can’t use that one it’s it’s nothing it mounts to zero so that’s why talk to your
Doctor discuss ask them to present to you different options to let you play around with different devices see how they feel in your hands see how how hard you need to inhale from them because that’s another problem as well if you have any issues with your joints for example if you’ve got arthritis and you’re needing to use some some of these finer inhalers where
You need to synchronize your breathing with inhaling that might be difficult ask if you might benefit from a spacer device for example these ones can be connected to two spacers let me just show you one now for example this one so this is a spacer device and then the inhaler would connect to the end and and then basically you would just spray a puff inside and
Then inhale so all these things can help you find the inhaler that’s right for you but like i said there are many options on the market there isn’t a best one i would say it’s important to talk to your doctor regularly this is really the main thing if you can keep in touch with your doctor maybe see them every three months i’m sure you will have a much better
Control of your respiratory conditions take care i wish you good health
Transcribed from video
Which is the best inhaler? By Dr. Stefan Cristian Stanel
