What is Ventolin?
Ventolin contains the active ingredient salbutamol. Ventolin is an asthma inhaler, used as a reliever treatment. It relieves and controls asthma symptoms when you’re having an attack.
Ventolin is a type of inhaler called a bronchodilator, which just means it’s an inhaler that helps to relax your airways to make it easier to breathe when you get symptoms.
The Ventolin inhaler comes in two types: the Evohaler and the Accuhaler. They both work in the same way to relieve your symptoms, but you use them in a slightly different way.
The Evohaler looks and works more like a ‘traditional’ inhaler. The Accuhaler comes in a circle shape and to use it, you just breathe in without pressing down.
Asthma is a condition that affects the airways, making it difficult to breathe. For many people it’s little more than an annoyance that leads to shortness of breath and wheezing. For some it can be life threatening.
Asthma can be set off by many things, from pollution and infections to exercise, so each person will need to take care with these triggers to control it. The condition can be well managed with medications like Ventolin, which should be kept close to you in case an attack occurs.
How does Ventolin work?
It relaxes the airways when they’ve been irritated by an asthma trigger. That means you can breathe more easily, leading to less breathlessness, coughing and tightness in the chest.
As it’s fast-acting, Ventolin provides quick treatment of bronchospasms (when the muscles in your lungs tighten, making it harder for you to breathe). Short acting bronchodilators shouldn’t normally be used to prevent asthma, except sometimes in the case of sport induced asthma.
What doses of Ventolin are there?
The Ventolin Evohaler contains 200 puffs per inhaler. Each puff has 100 micrograms of salbutamol, the ingredient that makes the device work.
The Accuhaler contains 60 blister strips, each with dry powder containing salbutamol. When you breathe in, you inhale one of these 60 doses. Each dose has 200 micrograms of salbutamol.
There’s a counter on the Accuhaler that tells you how many doses you have left. When you get down to five, the numbers will appear in red. This helps let you know when it’s time to order another inhaler.