jaw/drop
I need a Costco membership. I can easily spend $20 for a month’s worth of name brand Claritin.
Seriously, the savings on that one item alone more than pays for our annual membership. They are super-cheap for every OTC drug or vitamin I’ve ever bought there. (Though they are up to $13.99 since the last time I bought any.)
Returning to the op, and at the risk of further irritating Lianne22, who really does not want to hear any stats about how great controllers are, this pdf is full of numbers regarding the long term trends. As noted early in this thread, six months, let alone the most recent six months, is too granular to get data on, but long term the trends are interesting to see. You can see the graphic figures by scrolling far enough down but to summarize:
Hospitalizations too.
The difference has been the heavy push to popularize those evidence based stepped-approach guidelines (interestingly enough often heavily promoted and even incentivized by insurance companies who realized that effective prevention saved them money) that have been mentioned so often here, guidelines which have resulted in fewer being on twice a day bronchodilators ad infinitum, and more people both on appropriate controller medications and with a solid understanding of an effective action plan for safely managing their breakthrough asthma exacerbations when they occur.