Before I say anything, please note that a methacholine challenge also has a high rate of false readings, meaning you could show to be asthmatic and not be, or show no asthma when indeed you are. Some people say this is the 'gold standard' of asthma testing; it isn't. But it's the best we have so far.

That said, you yourself are the best 'test' of whether you have asthma or not, and you've proved it - you stop asthma medicine, you can't breathe. Period. Just because your tests show a high rating doesn't mean squat. My test too was 85%, but that doesn't mean I don't have asthma. And I proved it when I stopped my Advair last summer. I was great for a week, then I started feeling the tightness. Went back on the Advair and I felt fine. I've tried this twice and both times I needed to go back on it. What doctor test is going to tell me something more accurate than that? I personally would suggest you take the other posters advice and find yourself a kinder doctor who won't be so quick to judge you by a sheet of numbers and is so quick to dismiss you as a person. There are many different types of asthma; I myself don't fall into your typical textbook case - I don't wheeze, I don't cough, I don't have any allergies or known triggers, and I was just diagnosed with it less than two years ago. Do I have asthma? You bet. It's just not severe or what most doctors will see in their office. Fortunately, I found a wonderful doctor who has a sweet bedside manner that you don't see very often anymore.

As for putting you on 100/50, please try it and see how you do. The main objective of asthma is to keep it under control with as little medication as possible. Yes, you do wonderful on the 250/50, but you will in all likelyhood do wonderful on the 100, also. You won't know unless you try it, and you'll know fairly soon if it's not enough, so you can simply switch back to the 250 with no problems. My doctor put me on the 500 Advair when I first went to him because I was having sooooo much trouble breathing, and my panic was making it worse. In fact, I was on it for 6 weeks and still wasn't feeling any better, and Advair is known to start working in a couple of weeks. Not for me. So he kept me on the 500 for a few months until I was really feeling good, then he lowered it to 250......and I reacted the same way you did - panic. I was feeling so good on the 500 that I didn't want to go lower, had this picture in my head of immediately not being able to breathe. He said I would be fine...and he was right. He told me to try it and if I started having trouble, just go right back on the 500. But see, that's what makes him the doctor and me the patient - he knew I would be ok even though I was pretty scared. He then kept me on the 250 for a few more months, I think because he knew me fairly well by then and wanted me to be comfortable with that dose before lowering it again. And I was leary of the 100 too, but had a little more faith in my body by then so wasn't quite as scared that time. And a yar ago I took it upon myself to try to lower it even more and was just fine using only Advair 100 once a day. I may even try every other day but for now, I can maintain pretty well on once a day. My point is, once your asthma is under control, many of us can lower our doses or even stop one of our medications and still be ok. But you don't know unless you try, and with trying comes faith in your own body. Being scared is normal because you've now got your breathing back to normal and you're feeling wonderful and you don't want to do anything to rock the boat. But if that boat is going to rock, you're going to feel the waves before it capsizes. Try the 100/50 and see how you do. Believe me, it's such a nice feeling to feel like YOU have control over your body again. In fact, why don't you try it and then let us know how you do on it? It's such a help when people on here can read of someone else doing so well and hearing back from you will help lots of us.

Good luck!