Your severe asthma checker result
It sounds like you should talk to your GP about getting referred to a severe asthma specialist. This will help you get the extra support you need, deal with symptoms and lower your risk of asthma attacks.
You should ask for a referral to a specialist if over the last twelve months you have had any of the following:
- Twelve or more reliever inhalers in a year.
- Two or more courses of oral steroids in a year.
- You need to take ongoing ‘maintenance’ oral steroids (you're taking steroid tablets all the time).
- You’ve had an asthma attack, been to A&E, or been in hospital for your asthma in the last year.
Nobody should have to put up with symptoms or asthma attacks. Severe asthma can be managed, but it needs specialist care and treatments.
Your GP or nurse might want to see if other things improve your asthma before they refer you. They might check that:
- you’re using your asthma action plan
- if you smoke, you're getting support to stop smoking
- you’re taking your preventer medicines exactly as prescribed
- you’re using the correct inhaler technique
- you know what your asthma triggers are and how to manage them.
If you’ve made these changes but you’re still getting symptoms, then you should be referred to a specialist. Remember that it might take some time to see a difference though.
Find out more about how severe asthma is diagnosed.