Covid-19 advice for people with asthma
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PEOPLE with asthma have been advised to stick to their normal plan for managing their condition.
And they have been urged not to confuse breathing difficulties perhaps caused by growing pollen levels with symptoms of Covid-19.
Asthma UK has some good advice for people to follow at this time.
The best action you can take is to follow these simple asthma management steps:
- Keep taking your preventer inhaler daily as prescribed. This will help cut your risk of an asthma attack being triggered by any respiratory virus, including coronavirus.
- Carry your reliever inhaler (usually blue) with you every day, in case you feel your asthma symptoms flaring up.
- Download and use an asthma action plan to help you recognise and manage asthma symptoms when they come on.
- Start a peak flow diary, if you have a peak flow meter. If you don’t have a peak flow meter, think about getting one from your GP or pharmacist, as it can be a good way of tracking your asthma and helping to tell the difference between asthma symptoms and COVID-19 symptoms. It can also help your medical team to assess you over the phone or video.
- If you come down with flu, a cold, or any other respiratory infection, follow our tips for looking after your asthma when you’re not well.
You should still be getting your usual asthma care at this time, but some elements might look a bit different.
- Everyone needs to stay at home to slow down the spread of coronavirus. If you have asthma, and have not received a letter asking you to follow get essentials like food and medicine, no more than you absolutely need to
- to do a form of exercise once a day
- for any medical need
- to support a vulnerable person
- to go to work, only if you can't work from home.
Continue to wash your hands often, with soap and water. Don't touch your face if your hands aren't clean. And use tissues to wipe your nose or catch a sneeze, and bin them straight away.Manage your asthma well to reduce the risk from coronavirus
When people with asthma get respiratory infections, it can set off their asthma symptoms.
It is important to remember that if you are having an asthma attack that is an emergency and you should go to A&E or call 999 if necessary.
If your asthma is getting worse, you still need to make an urgent appointment to talk to your GP.
You should order your asthma medicines as normal. Don’t try to stockpile your medicines or order more than you need.
It’s really important to look after yourself while you are staying at home, even if you don’t have symptoms of Covid-19.
Try to keep active and do whatever physical activity you can manage. This might be a walk or run around your local area, or some yoga or an exercise video at home. Even if you aren’t able to do much exercise, try to break up the time you spend sitting down by walking around at home.
Look after your physical health: Eat healthy meals, drink enough water, and try not to increase how much alcohol you drink. If you smoke, now is a great time to give up as smoking raises the risk from coronavirus.
Stay social: It’s really important to keep in touch with friends and family. You can send texts or emails, call people on the phone or use video chat to stay in touch with people who are important to you.
Look after your mental health: Lots of people are feeling anxious or struggling with their mental health at the moment. The Mental Health Foundation has produced a great list of tips to help people cope with anxiety. Ideas include:
- Making sure you’re looking after yourself, so you feel more able to cope with whatever happens.
- Watch out for bad habits like increasing your alcohol consumption. Try to make sure you are getting some exercise
- Only looking at reliable sources of information, like the NHS and the gov.uk websites.
- Staying connected to friends and family and talking about your worries.Bear in mind that your reliever inhaler helps with symptoms like breathlessness, coughing or chest tightness that are caused by asthma, and may not help these symptoms if caused by COVID-19. This is because both asthma and Covid-19 can cause similar symptoms but for a different reason, and your inhaler only works against symptoms caused by asthma. If in doubt, follow your asthma action plan and use your reliever to treat chest symptoms. If this isn’t working and you are having difficulty breathing, get medical help straight away.
If your asthma is getting worse and you have symptoms of Covid-19, please use the 111 online service or call 111. Don’t go to your doctor’s surgery.
When you contact 111:
- Let them know that you have asthma and that you’re getting asthma symptoms.
- Explain how often you are using your reliever inhaler and if it’s not working completely or lasting for 4 hours.
- Follow the instructions given to you by 111.
- If your symptoms get worse quickly and you’re worried you are having an asthma attack, call 999 and let them know you may have coronavirus and are having an asthma attack. See our asthma attack advice for more information.
