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Dr. Chrysoula I. Liakou MD, PhD
- Treated online: Yes, for reviews, inhaler technique coaching, action plans and renewal of established inhalers; a first diagnosis usually needs in-person lung-function tests, and an asthma attack is a 112 emergency.
- What it is: chronic inflammation of the airways that narrows them in response to triggers; it affects about 1 in 12 adults in Europe and usually starts in childhood, though it can begin at any age.
- Poor control: needing a reliever inhaler 3 or more times a week, waking at night with symptoms, or symptoms limiting activity signal that the preventer needs stepping up.
- Preventers: inhaled steroids only work when taken every day, including the weeks you feel completely well; relievers open the airways for a few hours but do nothing about the inflammation underneath.
- Action plan: a written asthma action plan, reviewed yearly, is one of the strongest predictors of staying out of hospital.
- Emergency: call 112 if you are severely breathless, cannot finish a sentence in one breath, your reliever is not helping, or your lips or fingertips are turning blue or grey.
If you are severely breathless, cannot finish a sentence in one breath, your reliever inhaler is not helping within a few minutes, or your lips or fingertips are turning blue or grey, call 112 now. Sit upright and keep using your reliever as your action plan directs while help is on the way. Online care is for managing asthma between attacks, never during one.
Can an online doctor treat asthma?
Yes, within clear limits. An online doctor can review asthma control, coach inhaler technique on camera, renew established inhalers after a structured review and write a personal action plan.[1] A video review can often provide enough information to assess how well controlled your asthma is; it cannot replace in-person lung-function tests for a first diagnosis, and an asthma attack is always a 112 emergency rather than a video appointment.
If your asthma is already diagnosed and you need your usual inhalers renewed, you can also start with an Express Assessment for asthma: a short online questionnaire that a licensed doctor reviews. If the doctor needs to speak to you, the video call is included.
Listen: Asthma Treatment Online
The audio version of this topic from the Mobi Doctor podcast. Open the episode.
How an online consultation helps with asthma
- A proper asthma review: The doctor checks the markers of control (night waking, reliever use, limits on exercise and daily life) and adjusts your treatment plan accordingly.
- Inhaler technique coaching: Show your inhaler on camera. Technique errors are extremely common, they blunt the medicine’s effect, and most are fixable in one demonstration.
- Renewals after a real review: Your established preventer and reliever inhalers can be renewed online after a control check, with concerns flagged, not rubber-stamped.
- A written action plan: Exactly what to take every day, how to step up when symptoms build, and when to call 112.
What the doctor checks in an online asthma consultation
An online asthma review is not a form-filling exercise; it follows the control markers international asthma guidance uses.[1] The doctor will typically check:
- Reliever-use frequency: how many days in the past month you needed your reliever, and how long a canister lasts. Needing it three or more times a week is a marker of poor control and prompts a treatment review, not a routine renewal.[1]
- Night waking and daily limits: symptoms at night or on waking, and anything you now avoid (stairs, exercise, cold air) because of your chest.
- Attacks and steroid courses: any flare-ups, urgent visits or oral corticosteroid courses since your last review, which move the conversation from renewal to step-up.
- Inhaler technique, watched on camera: you demonstrate with your own device, exactly as you use it at home, because small errors quietly drain the dose reaching your lungs.
- Adherence and side effects: how consistently preventer doses actually happen, plus hoarseness or oral thrush from steroid inhalers, largely prevented by rinsing and spitting after use.
- Triggers and exposures: smoking and vaping, damp housing, pets, pollen (treating hay fever makes asthma easier to control) and workplace exposures such as flour, sprays or solvents.
- Your action plan: what you take daily, what “getting worse” looks like for you, exactly how to step up, and when to call 112, agreed in writing.
Have your inhalers, your action plan and any peak-flow readings within reach when the call starts. The technique demonstration is where reviews earn their keep, so bring the device you actually use rather than describing it from memory.
Signs your asthma is less controlled than you think
Why am I using my blue inhaler so often?
Frequent reliever use means the airway inflammation underneath is not controlled. Needing a blue reliever inhaler three or more times a week, waking at night with symptoms, or emptying canisters within a month or two are danger signals strongly linked to severe attacks. They call for an urgent treatment review, not another canister.[1]
This is why reliever-only treatment is no longer recommended for adults: relievers open the airways for a few hours while the inflammation quietly worsens beneath.[1] People also drift into under-reporting: cutting back on sport, sleeping propped up, treating wheeze as background noise. Count honestly for a week; if the numbers surprise you, book a review now rather than at renewal time.
Preventers only work when taken daily
Preventer (anti-inflammatory) inhalers are the foundation of asthma care, and they only work when used every day, including the weeks you feel completely well.[2] Stopping when symptoms settle is the most common reason they come back. If remembering is the problem, say so: pairing doses with brushing your teeth, or switching to a combination inhaler, often fixes adherence more effectively than good intentions.
Common triggers, and what to do about them
Viral colds are the classic trigger for flare-ups, which is why your action plan should say exactly how to step up when one starts. Pollen is the next most common: treating hay fever properly makes asthma measurably easier to control.[1] Cold air, exercise, smoke and vaping, damp and mouldy housing, and workplace exposures (flour, sprays, solvents) all matter. One pattern deserves special mention: if your chest is consistently better on holiday and worse at work, tell the doctor, because occupational asthma is assessable and treatable, and the earlier it is caught the better.
How do I use my inhaler correctly?
Most inhaler errors come from speed: pressing too late, breathing in too fast, or skipping the breath-hold. For a standard pressurised spray inhaler, the sequence below delivers medicine to your lungs instead of your throat. Ask the doctor to watch your technique on camera; corrections take minutes.
- Remove the cap and shake the inhaler well.
- Sit or stand upright and breathe out fully, away from the inhaler.
- Seal your lips around the mouthpiece.
- Start breathing in slowly and deeply, and press the canister once as you begin.
- Keep breathing in slowly, then hold your breath for up to 10 seconds.
- Wait about 30 seconds before any second puff, and repeat the steps.
- Use a spacer if one is advised; it makes every step easier and more forgiving.
- After corticosteroid inhalers, rinse your mouth and spit to prevent thrush.
Dry-powder devices work differently: they need a quick, deep breath in rather than a slow one. Bring your own device to the review and demonstrate with it, not with a generic technique from memory.
Which asthma care might the doctor recommend?
Care follows your level of control. This is the decision framework the doctors use, aligned with international asthma guidance:[1]
Swipe sideways to compare →
| Presentation | Likely first step | Suitable for online care? | When referral or in-person care is needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stable, well-controlled asthma with inhalers due for renewal | Structured review and technique check, then renewal of established inhalers | Yes | Only if the review uncovers poor control or new symptoms |
| Reliever needed three or more times a week, or night waking | Preventer review and treatment step-up, with early follow-up | Usually yes | Worsening despite the step-up, or features that need physical examination |
| Symptoms that suggest asthma, never formally diagnosed | Likelihood assessment, then referral for spirometry and related tests | Initial assessment only | Diagnosis needs in-person lung-function testing[1][4] |
| Frequent oral steroid courses, or possible severe asthma | Review, then respiratory specialist referral, including biologic assessment | Review and referral | Ongoing severe-asthma care sits with the specialist |
| Attack now: severe breathlessness, sentences broken by breaths | Call 112 and follow your action plan while help comes | No | Every suspected attack is an emergency, in person |
Not sure which row is your asthma? A doctor can tell you in one consultation.
See available times →Special situations
Asthma in pregnancy
Keep taking your prescribed inhalers. Poorly controlled asthma poses more risk to mother and baby than the medicines used to treat it, which have long safety records.[1] Book a review early in pregnancy so your plan is checked, never stop a preventer on your own, and treat any attack exactly as usual: as an emergency, calling 112.
Exercise and sport
Well-controlled asthma should not stop you exercising; many competitive athletes have it. Symptoms during or after exercise are information: occasional mild tightness may be managed with a proper warm-up and your plan’s pre-exercise advice, but regularly needing a reliever to get through a session means your day-to-day control needs reviewing, not your ambitions lowering.
Travelling with asthma
Keep every inhaler in your hand luggage: hold temperatures are unkind to canisters, and delayed bags should never include your reliever. Carry your action plan (a photo on your phone counts) and know your inhalers’ ingredient names, because brand names change between EU countries. If you run out while travelling in Europe, an online review can renew an established prescription after the usual checks. And wherever you are in the EU, the emergency number for an attack is the same: 112.
When it might not be asthma
Breathlessness has imitators. Episodes with tingling fingers, dizziness and a racing heart in stressful moments suggest a breathing-pattern problem rather than airway narrowing. Long-term smokers over 40 may have COPD, which needs its own tests and treatment.[3] A cough that is worse lying down may be reflux or post-nasal drip. An honest assessment sorts these out, and if in-person tests are needed to be sure, the doctor says so and directs you.
Treatment options for asthma
What you can do yourself
Know your action plan and keep it somewhere you can find mid-symptom. Check your technique regularly (even long-term users drift) and use a spacer with pressurised inhalers if one is advised. Avoid tobacco smoke, treat hay fever, and take up seasonal flu vaccination where it is offered to you.[5] If a peak-flow meter is part of your plan, record readings when symptoms change: the numbers make your review far sharper.
Prescription treatment
A prescription is never issued without a consultation, renewals included, because each one follows a control check. The foundation is an inhaled corticosteroid preventer taken daily. Many adults now use a combination inhaler containing a corticosteroid plus formoterol, which under some regimens serves as both maintenance and reliever; your doctor will be specific about which plan you are on.[1] Reliever inhalers such as salbutamol ease symptoms but do nothing for the disease underneath; if you need one often, the answer is reviewing the preventer, not stockpiling relievers, and the doctor will not keep reissuing them without a review. Add-on tablets such as montelukast suit some people. Short courses of oral corticosteroids for flare-ups are attack treatment, decided at the time with a doctor, not something to keep on standby unsupervised. Biologic injections for severe asthma are started and monitored by specialists; where they may be needed, the doctor refers you.
When asthma is treated online, and when you need in-person care
Treated online: annual and interval asthma reviews; renewal of established preventer and reliever inhalers after a control check; inhaler technique coaching; writing and updating personal action plans; planning ahead for pollen season, travel or winter infections; and first assessments of possible asthma, where the doctor starts the work-up and directs you to testing.
In-person care: an asthma attack is never managed by video. Severe breathlessness, sentences broken by breaths, a reliever that is not helping, or blue or grey lips mean call 112 now, then book a review afterwards so your plan is checked. A first-ever diagnosis needs in-person lung-function tests such as spirometry, which the doctor arranges rather than guessing.[1] Severe asthma that may need biologic medicines belongs with a respiratory specialist, as does asthma needing frequent oral steroid courses. Suspected occupational asthma needs formal assessment, and long-term smokers with progressive breathlessness need in-person testing for COPD before any label sticks.
When to get in-person care
Signs of an asthma attack: severe breathlessness or wheeze, being unable to finish sentences in one breath, the reliever giving little or no relief, blue or grey lips or fingertips, exhaustion, confusion or drowsiness. Call 112 immediately; do not wait to see if it passes. Sit upright and keep using your reliever as your action plan directs until help arrives. Also seek urgent in-person care if your breathing is worsening rapidly over hours despite following your plan, or a chest infection is making it hard to breathe.
How Mobi Doctor works
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Book a time that suits you:
open daily 7am–11pm CET. You can see a doctor over video, usually within 15 minutes. No subscription, exact price up front.
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Speak to a licensed doctor about asthma:
a private video call: you describe what you feel, the doctor asks what matters, and you agree the right plan together.
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Leave with your plan:
everything agreed before you hang up: your plan, and a prescription to use at a pharmacy near you where medication is clinically right for you. If your doctor decides you need to be seen in person, you get a full refund.
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Frequently asked questions about asthma
What is asthma?
Asthma is a long-term condition in which the lining of the airways is inflamed and over-sensitive, so that triggers such as colds, pollen, exercise or cold air make the airway muscles tighten and the lining swell. The result is wheeze, cough, chest tightness and breathlessness that come and go. Asthma affects about 1 in 12 adults, cannot be cured, and is controlled with inhalers.
What are the symptoms of asthma?
Asthma causes wheeze (a whistling sound on breathing out), a cough that is often worse at night or early morning, chest tightness and breathlessness, typically in episodes triggered by colds, exercise, allergens, cold air or smoke. Symptoms that vary through the day and respond to a reliever inhaler are characteristic; a cough alone, especially at night, can be asthma too.
What causes asthma, and what triggers attacks?
Asthma develops from a mix of inherited tendency and environment: a family history of asthma or allergy, eczema and hay fever, early viral infections, smoke exposure and some workplace dusts and fumes. Attacks are triggered by colds and flu, pollen, dust mites, pets, mould, exercise, cold air, smoke, pollution, stress, and medicines such as aspirin, ibuprofen and beta-blockers in some people.
How is asthma diagnosed?
Asthma is diagnosed from the pattern of symptoms plus in-person breathing tests: spirometry with a reliever to show reversible narrowing, a FeNO breath test for airway inflammation, and sometimes peak-flow monitoring over two weeks. An online doctor can assess how likely asthma is from your story, exclude warning signs, start a symptom diary and refer you for the tests.
Can an online doctor diagnose asthma for the first time?
Usually not definitively: asthma is rarely diagnosed for the first time over video. Diagnosis normally needs in-person lung-function tests such as spirometry. What an online doctor can do is assess how likely asthma is from your story, rule out warning signs, arrange the right tests, and review you once results are back.
Can I renew my asthma inhalers online?
Yes, you can renew your asthma inhalers online, but never without a review. After a video consultation covering your symptoms, reliever use and inhaler technique, a licensed doctor can renew your established preventer and reliever inhalers and give you a prescription to use at a pharmacy near you. Reliever need is the main marker of control, so each renewal follows a short review.
What is the difference between a preventer and a reliever inhaler?
A preventer (usually an inhaled steroid, often combined with a long-acting opener) treats the inflammation that causes asthma and only works when taken every day, even when you feel well. A reliever (such as salbutamol) opens the airways quickly for a few hours but does nothing about the inflammation. Needing the reliever three or more times a week means the preventer needs reviewing; many adults now use a combined inhaler for both jobs.
Why does it matter if I use my blue inhaler a lot?
Relievers open the airways for a few hours but do nothing about the inflammation underneath, so heavy use masks a worsening problem. Frequent reliever use is strongly associated with severe asthma attacks and with deaths from asthma. If you reach for it three or more times a week, or get through more than a couple of inhalers a year, book a review and expect the preventer to be stepped up.
How do I use my inhaler correctly?
Most asthma inhaler failure is technique. For a standard press-and-breathe inhaler: shake, breathe out fully, seal your lips, press once as you start a slow deep breath in over four to five seconds, hold for ten seconds, and wait 30 seconds before a second puff; a spacer makes this far more effective. For dry-powder inhalers the breath in is fast and deep. The doctor checks your technique on camera at every review.
What are the signs of an asthma attack, and what should I do?
An asthma attack means worsening wheeze, cough, chest tightness and breathlessness that the reliever is not controlling. Sit upright, take your reliever as your action plan directs (usually one puff at a time, up to ten), and call 112 if you are too breathless to finish a sentence, the reliever is not helping, you are exhausted, or your lips are turning blue or grey. Never lie down and never wait to see.
Is it safe to use my asthma inhalers during pregnancy?
Yes: keep taking your prescribed asthma inhalers. Poorly controlled asthma poses more risk in pregnancy than the medicines used to treat it, which have long safety records. Book a review early in pregnancy so your plan is checked, and treat any flare promptly, because the baby depends on your oxygen levels.
Can asthma be cured, and does it go away?
Asthma cannot be cured, but it can be controlled so well that symptoms disappear. Many children grow out of it, though it can return in adulthood; adult-onset asthma usually persists but responds to daily preventer treatment. Keeping a preventer going through good spells, avoiding smoke, treating hay fever and having the yearly flu vaccine keep asthma quiet and reduce the chance of attacks.
What can I do myself to keep asthma under control?
Keep asthma controlled by taking your preventer every day, carrying your reliever, checking your technique, following your written action plan and avoiding your triggers: stop smoking and avoid smoke, treat hay fever and reflux, reduce dust mites in the bedroom, warm up before exercise and cover your mouth in cold air. Have the flu vaccine yearly and book a review at least once a year.
Can I get an asthma action plan online?
Yes, you can get an asthma action plan online. During a video consultation the doctor can write or update a personal action plan: your daily treatment, how to recognise deterioration, exactly how to step up, and when to call 112. Keep it on your phone, share it with your household, and have it reviewed yearly or after any attack.
Sources & further reading
- Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention (2026 update), GINA, Global Initiative for Asthma, 2026.
- Asthma fact sheet, WHO, World Health Organization, 2024.
- Asthma, European Lung Foundation with the European Respiratory Society, 2024.
- Asthma: diagnosis, monitoring and chronic asthma management (NG245), NICE with BTS and SIGN, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2024.
- Asthma, HSE, Health Service Executive (Ireland), accessed August 2026.
- Asthma, NHS, National Health Service (UK), accessed October 2026.
This page is for information only and is not a substitute for a medical consultation. Guideline links are provided for transparency; treatment decisions are made with your doctor.
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