Respiratory Medication

Common Types of Respiratory Medications Used for Treating Breathing Problems

Respiratory medicines assist you to breathe easier, this is usually done while treating different kinds of breathing problems such as shortness of breath and wheezing. Some of these interventions involve inhaling medications with nebulizer devices in a mist-like form. There are different kinds of medicines that can be recommended by doctors for the treatment of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, asthma and more. Examples of these medication include:

Antimicrobial medications

These medication are responsible for treating bacterial infections. These medicines include tobramycin (TOBI), ribavirin (Virazole), pentamidine (Nebupent) etc. Such kinds of medicines are used for managing breathing infections (Health News, 2016).

Corticosteroids

This medication is a steroid that is used to reduce swelling in the airways (Health News, 2016).  An example of a Corticosteroid is Budesonide (Pulmicort Respules) .

Bronchodilator medications

This type of medication is used to open and relax airway passages. Metaproterenol (Alupent) and ipratropium (Atrovent) are two of the common examples of these drugs. (Health News, 2016)

Short-acting beta agonists

This type of medication is 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 (Health News, 2016).

Long-acting beta agonists

This is a type of bronchodilators that can be used along with inhaled corticosteroids. Formoterol (Perforomist) and arformoterol (Brovana) are two instances of these medicines. Doctors can prescribe this with inhaled corticosteroids as a combination in their prescription for respiratory disorder patients (Health News, 2016).

Racemic epinephrine

These are used for treating croup, severe attacks of asthma and other emergency respiratory cases (Health News, 2016).

Mucolytics

These drugs are used for thinning, loosening and clearing out secretions of mucus from the lungs. Dornase alfa (Pulmozyme) and acetylcysteine (Mucomyst) are two of the major examples of these medicines (Health News, 2016).

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 (Health News, 2016).

IV antibiotics

These drugs are given through intravenous administration, it 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 (Health News, 2016).

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 (Health News, 2016).



                                                                         References

Health News. (2016, December 23). Common Types of Respiratory Medications. America's Best Care Plus Inc. Retrieved from https://americasbestcareplus.com/common-types-respiratory-medications/.