Can antihistamines help asthma

Answer 1

This answer basicallly comes from Google and my anecdotal experience as a long-term asthmatic. ***I am not a doctor.*** The dogma used to be "no", dating from studies done way back. This was reinforced as late as 1997: http://www.erj.ersjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/10/2216 However, this never quite made sense since histamine was a well-known role in provoking Asthma attacks. So there were calls to re-evaluate this (2003): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12974190&dopt=Abstract The answer now is a qualified "yes, sometimes definitely": http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/adis/trm/2006/00000005/00000003/art00001 Asthma is a complex disease, and so are all allergic conditions, and it is hardly surprising that different therapies achieve different results in different sufferers. My own recent experience was an eye-opener. I was a well-controlled asthmatic on seretide etc. But since moving to live in the Mediterreanean I experienced gradually worsening and more prolonged bouts of bronchitis, requiring ever more courses of antibiotics and high doses of seretide, berevent, ventolin, singulair etc. I became short of breath nearly all the time to some extent, with frequent green and grey copious mucous-producing cough, slight fever etc. After two years of this my specialist was convinced I had developed chronic obstructive disease, probably bronchiectasis. My spirometry was still mainly ok. Finally I went for a CT scan. Result: no bronchiectasis or emphysema etc. Normal! And, since I was an allergic type, I had to go on antihistamines for four days before taking the contrast medium intravenously. And they gave me two lots of corticosteroid injections four days apart. Guess what: no mucous, hardly any cough, and greatly improved sob. => my problem was almost certainly allergy, and responds to daily doses of antihistamines! I have become hugely sensitive to passive cigarette smoke, which seems to be the major trigger of this problem (though much less so if taklinbg antihistamines).