I have asthma and it was diagnosed and is being managed by an internist (who is not a pulmonologist). So I am not sure you really need to see a specialist unless it is not being well managed by your primary care doctor or it is a complicated case.

We were managing my daughter's asthma with our family doctor. I thought she was doing fairly well but she was having some bad reactions to her nebulizer treatments, more extreme than we were comfortable with. Her doctor suggested a pulmonologist and I am SO glad. The main thing I wanted to share with you, he told us that Advair should not be a first line of defense. There are 2 medications in Advair and this new doctor explained that we should try just the one medication in it to see if that works alone or if we can at least cut back on the dosages. With the 2 together you have no flexibility. My daughter is on the Advair 500 because the lesser dosages didn't work. But he thinks she may not need the long acting steroid in it and is hoping to get her off of that. He showed us research that the long acting steroid should never be used unless the asthma cannot be managed without it. As soon as she is out of school, she is a senior, we will be taking her off the Advair and try the ingredients separately for more control over the dosing. He isn't going to change anything this close to the end of the year to minimize missed days from school incase it doesn't work.

He also explained that you really can't diagnose asthma without doing the breathing tests. Sarah did have this done, but he prefers to repeat them at least once a year because it can change. He said this helps to give the correct dosing of medications. There is one part of the test that shows how sensitive you are to the albuterol, he feels this is extremely important.