Common Types of Respiratory Medications Used for Treating Breathing Problems
Respiratory medicines are designed to assist you breathe better while treating different kinds of breathing problems such as wheezing and respiratory shortness. These include inhaling medications with nebulizer devices in a mist-like form. Various kinds of medicines can be recommended by doctors for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, asthma and more. These include the following:
Antimicrobial medications
These are used for the treatment of breathing infections. These medicines include tobramycin (TOBI), ribavirin (Virazole), pentamidine (Nebupent) etc. Such kinds of medicines are used for managing breathing infections.
Corticosteroids
These are actually a type of steroids which are designed to reduce swelling in the airways. One of the most well-known instances of Corticosteroids is Budesonide (Pulmicort Respules).
Bronchodilator medications
These are used in order to open and relax the air passages. Metaproterenol (Alupent) and ipratropium (Atrovent) are two of the common examples of these drugs.
Short-acting beta agonists
These are actually a type of bronchodilators which can open as well as relax airways which have got narrowed down. Levalbuterol HCl (Xopenex) and albuterol sulfate (AccuNeb) are some of the instances of this group of drugs.
Long-acting beta agonists
These kinds of bronchodilators can be used along with inhaled corticosteroids. Formoterol (Perforomist) and arformoterol (Brovana) are two instances of these medicines. Doctors can prescribe these with inhaled corticosteroids as a combination in their prescription for respiratory disorder patients.
Racemic epinephrine
These are used for treating croup, severe attacks of asthma and other emergency respiratory cases.
Mucolytics
Such kinds of drugs are used for thinning, loosening and clearing out secretions of mucus from lungs. Dornase alfa (Pulmozyme) and acetylcysteine (Mucomyst) are two of the major examples of these medicines.
Combination medications
Albuterol (DuoNeb) / ipratropium are the combination drugs which are generally found to be very useful for alleviating respiratory symptoms. These assist in reducing swelling of the airways.
IV antibiotics
These can be used for the treatment of acute cases of infection, such as bacterial pneumonia or bacterial bronchitis. These are used in an intravenous manner for curing the respiratory problems of patients.
Supplemental oxygen
It can be used for raising the level of oxygen in bloodstream. Doctors can recommend some steps for the treatment of thick mucus, wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath and inflammation in the air passage. Some methods can be taught by a nurse or a respiratory therapist to show you the ways of conducting those at home.
See your physician if you experience any breathing problems.