Western Drug Therapy
Since most patients with asthma we treat are bound to be on some kind of medication, it is
important to understand their mode of action and how they affect our treatment.
The three main approaches to drug treatment of asthma in Western medicine are:
- anti-allergic drugs
- bronchodilators
- corticosteroids.
Each of these drugs acts on a certain stage of the pathological process that leads to asthma.
Anti-Allergic Drugs (Intal)
These act by stabilizing the mast cells in the bronchi and reducing their sensitivity to allergen
stimulation. They are used only as a prophylactic in the prevention and not the treatment of
asthma. They seem to be more effective in children than in adults.
They do not affect the treatment with acupuncture or herbs and do not produce any appreciable
change in the pulse or tongue.
Bronchodilators (Ventolin)
These act by stimulating the adrenergic receptors in the sympathethic nerves to the bronchi and
thus causing bronchodilation. The most widely-used ones are the beta2-adrenoceptor stimulants
as they are more selective and produce fewer side-effects than adrenaline or teophylline (which
stimulate both alfa- and beta-adrenoceptors). Even these, however, have side-effects and, in
particular, they may stimulate the heart producing tachycardia.
From the point of view of Chinese diagnosis, selective bronchodilators such as salbutamol
(Ventolin) do not affect the tongue although they may make the Heart pulse slightly
Overflowing. Other brochodilators such as isoprenaline (Iso-Autohaler) and orciprenaline
(Alupent) have more side-effects on the heart and besides making the Heart pulse Overflowing,
they may also make the tip of the tongue red.
The use of bronchodilator inhalers may be integrated with acupuncture and herbal treatment.
Indeed, they may provide a useful benchmark of the efficacy of our treatment as the patient