Prof. Marcus Butler

So it's a superior treatment across the board at reducing flare ups and reducing the burden of symptoms and also ultimately reduces the exposure to the steroid side effects that can concern a lot of patients.

There's less inhaled steroid exposure over the course of a year with a MART treatment plan than with other conventional inhalers.

Absolutely, it does.

I mean, there's the misconception that there's only one type of asthma.

There are several different types of asthma.

But for those where allergy plays a role, it can cause havoc in asthma patients.

I mean, a lot of pollen symptoms will strike the nose and the eyes.

First of all, there's allergic symptoms there.

But particularly a phenomenon that's well understood is thunderstorm asthma, where in those atmospheric conditions you can rupture pollen.

It becomes much finer in size and is more inhalable and can get down to deep airways and has clear evidence of causing epidemics of outbreaks of hospitalisation with asthma symptoms in those sorts of scenarios.

So there's a whole spectrum of symptoms that can occur due to pollen.

And the pollen season runs from as early with the tree pollens of February right through now and the thick of it with grass pollen, but it will also lead into the weed pollen season that goes right through to nearly October.

So very much so.

I mean, medication is just one part of the story, but trigger avoidance is a key concept to be educated about in asthma.

And too often GPs are overwhelmed.

The Asthma Society has a WhatsApp messaging service staffed by an asthma nurse specialist who can help with the non-medication based approaches to improving control of asthma.

They also have an advice line where you can get a scheduled call back to go through it in detail.

But in a nutshell, it's recognising your triggers and how, for example, not to be exercising at the height of pollen, but waiting maybe till just after rain when it clears pollen out of the air and not bringing your clothes inside.

You shouldn't be drying clothes outside on sunny days because when you bring them in, the pollen will come off.

You should shower when you get back home the evening before bringing the pollens into your bedroom.