Oral asthma medications are used for asthma control to prevent asthma flare-ups and not used to relieve immediate symptoms. They are taken daily -- even when a person does not have any asthma symptoms.

The three oral medications discussed in this section include:

• Theophylline: a long-term controller medication taken by mouth and used alone or together with inhaled corticosteroids to treat asthma.
  
  
• Oral corticosteroids: used in combination with short-acting beta agonists (also called bronchodilators or rescue medicines) to treat moderate to severe asthma flare-ups.
  
  
• Leukotriene modifiers (also called leukotriene receptor antagonists): medicines used for long-term control and prevention of asthma symptoms.

Back to top