Budesonide 0.5 , Formoterol fumarate 20mcgFometol-0.5

How Fometol-0.5 works

This is a combination, and each component opens the airway by a different route. Formoterol stimulates the same beta-2 receptors as salbutamol but stays bound for around twelve hours. Unusually for a long-acting bronchodilator it also acts within minutes, so it covers both the immediate need and the maintenance. It is always given with an inhaled steroid, never alone -- a long-acting bronchodilator by itself relieves the symptom while the underlying inflammation continues unchecked. Budesonide is an inhaled corticosteroid. It binds the glucocorticoid receptor inside the airway lining cells and switches off the genes producing inflammatory mediators, which reduces the swelling and twitchiness underlying asthma. This is controller therapy, not rescue: it works on the disease over days and weeks and does nothing for an attack in progress. Delivered straight into the lung, the dose reaching the rest of the body stays small. Budesonide is the most widely used nebulised steroid in children, and a large part of any swallowed portion is removed by the liver before it reaches the circulation, which keeps systemic exposure low. Two mechanisms together achieve more than pushing either one higher. These are respules for a nebuliser. The machine turns the solution into a fine mist breathed in over several minutes through a mask or mouthpiece, so no coordination is needed at all -- which is why nebulisation is used for infants, for the elderly, and for anyone too breathless to manage an inhaler. Each respule is a single sealed dose, so there is nothing to measure and nothing to contaminate.