Surgery for asthma

[Jes2G]

I was diagnosed with asthma in my early teenage years.  During my childhood years doctors told I had bronchitis.  Anyway, so over the course of my life I've taken numerous inhalers, allergy medicines, and allergy shots for my asthma and allergies.  I'm 25 now and I've had both of them under control for at least 3 years.  I no longer have a problem in the big airways (although improvement is always needed), but the big problem lies in the small airways.  My dr. said that this is why I can go months without medication and still feel ok.  However, he said that when I get old I will have trouble breathing and it will be difficult to treat so I should keep up with the medicines.  

I was thinking one day about the medicines I take.  Inhalers (the way I understand them) are just steroids that expand the airways to make breathing easier.  So, if I have to take these inhalers twice a day everyday to keep my airways open, then am I going to need the for the rest of my life?  Is this another ploy from the medical industry to keep my business?  On a serious note, I'm concerned about the cost effectiveness of needing constant medication.  Is there a surgery that can be performed to get rid of asthma?

[National Jewish]

Start with the easy one: There is no surgery that can get rid of your asthma.

People with asthma, despite feeling well, often have an accumulation of inflammation in the airways that can lead to chronic narrowing of the airways over time.  This is called remodeling.  Inhaled steroids have been shown, in some people definitely not all, to be able to prevent this remodeling over time.  That is why doctors recommend such therapy even when you are feeling fine.  It is hard to know if you will need these medications the rest of your life or not.  As an adult who has had asthma for many years, it is certainly possible you will have some effect, maybe only the narrowing of the small airways, for a long time.

[starion]

At the present time, there is no "cure" for asthma and no surgical intervention that has been proven to be effective.  Research continues, of course, with one study that showed that something on chromosome 17 may be linked to greater likelihood of developing asthma.

One treatment that is in clinical trials & shows some promise for severe uncontrolled asthmatics is bronchoplasty on the airways.  For folks with severe allergic asthma that isn't helped by other treatments, some have found Xolair to be very helpful.  For others who have persistent asthma, it does seem like nothing has been discovered to replace regular use of inhaled steroids (at the lowest dose that keeps the asthma well-controlled).

It does seem a bit much to envision taking meds daily for the rest of our lives, so hopefully there will be some great research breakthroughs that will give us more alternative options for improving our health and lungs in the future.
Starion