Monitoring Asthma Treatment The severity of asthma can vary, and
asthma often requires changes in your treatment to control it.
To ensure that you are getting the proper treatment, you have to
continuously monitor and evaluate the disease and communicate
with your doctor. Know the symptoms of poorly controlled
asthma—wheezing, cough, chest tightness, or shortness of breath.
Having a written record of what to do during an asthma attack
(asthma action plan) will give you guidelines for increasing
medicine if your or your child's asthma starts to get out of
control. Your doctor should periodically assess your asthma. He
or she will ask how you have been doing since your last visit.
Your doctor will ask about daytime asthma symptoms, nighttime
awakenings, and symptoms early in the morning that do not get
better with medicine. In asthma, how severe your symptoms are
does not always match the results of your lung function tests.
Some people will not notice severe symptoms until their lung
function is very bad. For