Your asthma controlling medications?

[syntaxofthings]

So I last wrote here just over a year ago asking for suggestions about pollen. I implemented a few of your suggestions, and I'm finally seeing a specialist in allergies and asthma instead of trying to diagnose myself from 1,500mi away from my primary doctor. And, having been on asthma medications over half my life, I am curious about what asthma medications you're all on.

For daily bronchodilators, I was on Advair (varied between 100/50 and 500/50) from age 10-12 to about age 21, then I switched to Symbicort (120/4.5 until two weeks ago, 80/4.5). I don't think I was ever instructed in the correct usage of either of these until recently. I was told a few times that I could back off of these medications by taking less of it in the day; about a month and a half ago I was told that this was not the ideal way to back off of these medications because you're getting less volume of the medicine rather than less strength and it's murky territory. Since then I'm religiously taking two puffs of Symbicort twice a day. However, since I've been on long-acting bronchodilators most of my life, I don't know what other options there are to treat asthma. Possibly less severe ones. So I'm curious, what do other people take for their asthma symptoms?

I also have had albuterol for a rescue inhaler and recently switched to Xopenex.

Also for the curious, I just wrote an entry in my Dreamwidth about allergy testing and how I'm conflicted about my asthma management.