My son had appalling asthma when he was younger and ended up on chromogen (sp), serevant and flixotide, none of which I was too thrilled about, however they did stabilise it and we eventually managed to get him back down onto simple ventolin and finally once we'd done elaborate allergy tests we managed to devise a regime of wet dusting and avoidance of triggers that means that now he's inhaler free, although he still carries a ventolin just in case, but hasn't now had an attack for nearly four years.