There is good and bad news when it comes to asthma. The bad news is more people suffer from asthma with each year that passes and the number of asthmatics continues to grow. The good news is that modern medicine continues to come-up with new, effective drugs to deal with asthma. However, not all new asthma medications are the answer for everyone.

About New Asthma Medications

Some patients, and doctors too, are so excited when a new medication becomes available that they want to take (or prescribe in the case of the doctors) the drug right away. You can't blame them. What they actually want is the positive effects that the drug will bring.

However, sometimes a drug will get approved and then later on it will be found to have other negative effects. In fact, three asthma medications were found recently to have the potential to cause severe asthma attacks.

Some Medications May Cause Harmful Effects

Just a couple years ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shocked many asthma patients by coming out with a warning about three asthma medicines. These drugs are known as beta-antagonists (or LABAs). Basically what they do is relax the muscles around the lung's airways so that asthma attacks don't occur as frequently.

While the drugs do their job - they do decrease the frequency of asthma attacks - they also may allow the attacks to be much more severe when asthma attacks do occur. In fact, according to the FDA, the attacks could be so severe that death may result.

So obviously patients who were or are taking any of these medicines have to be concerned. No one wants to think that an asthma medication that is supposed to help them could actually kill them.

Not surprisingly, many users of the drugs were asking how each drug could get approved if they had the potential to be so harmful. Part of the reason is that sometimes a new asthma medication gets approved before everything about them is fully known.

What to Do About These New Medications?

So, what about an asthma sufferer who needs relief supposed to do about any new medications that become available? Unfortunately, there are no easy answers.

Each person has to weigh the problems with their asthma versus the possible benefits versus the possible unknown complications. And each person should also fully discuss the new drugs with his/her doctor.

Then if the person decides to take a particular medicine, he/she should be monitored closely by a doctor and he/she should also monitor him/herself.

Then if anything seems strange, the problem should be addressed immediately.