Patients whose asthma symptoms are only mild and intermittent usually don’t need daily asthma medications.  They just use a rescue inhaler, like albuterol, whenever symptoms come up. Patients with daily or almost daily symptoms, on the other hand, need daily preventive medications to control their asthma.  The first choice for a preventive asthma medicine is a low dose of an inhaled steroid.  If this first choice doesn’t control symptoms well, patients generally face a choice between increasing...