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10:02am July 26, 2013

➸ Urocyon's Jaunts: Argh. There is a strong whiff of mold in our hallway and wafting into...

clatterbane:

youneedacat:

clatterbane:

youneedacat:

clatterbane:

Argh. There is a strong whiff of mold in our hallway and wafting into here, and I can’t figure out where it might be coming from. (And I don’t want to spend too much time looking and breathing in spores. Another job for Mr. C later…)

Also, my rescue inhaler is starting to run low, and I have no…

Possibly because some people have really nasty cardiac reactions?


I wasn’t even thinking of that, but good point. Though, I have never had them even mention the potential for serious adverse effects there, not even when I first got an inhaler prescribed. I guess they’ve figured since then that if you’ve experienced bad cardiac effects, you wouldn’t be in there asking for more. But, I would think that maybe a warning to seek immediate medical attention if you do experience this, and not to use it again, would be enough for OTC use. (And maybe like on yeast infection treatment, to consult your doctor if this is a new problem.) But, yeah, I never even got any adverse effect warnings whatsoever, with prescriptions for albuterol, and this doesn’t seem unusual.

One of the reasons that I’d like to be able to get back to a GP is to try to get better asthma/allergy treatment. Because this is just getting ridiculous. From past experience, just some Singulair would probably do wonders for all of it. I hope that if I push the matter, the NHS is taking asthma as much more seriously now as the last couple of times I had really bad exascerbations while back in the US. (Nobody had even checked my O2 saturation or peak flow rates before that, seriously, just handed me an albuterol inhaler and told me to take Benadryl.)

I’ve had those effects, it’s why I’m on a very closely related drug that doesn’t do it to me, levalbuterol/Xopenex.


I’m glad you did find something that works better for you, and that this is another thing where closely related drugs can have such different effects. That does sound pretty scary. The worst I’ve gotten from albuterol was a little heart racing when I had to use too much in a day. I’ve also tried levalbuterol before, since that was what the doctor had samples of right then, and it didn’t seem to work as well for me. Individual reactions are very individual. :/

Levalbuterol doesn’t work quite as well for me either. But it has a far lower rate of heart racing. And when you have to use it in a high dose neb sometimes, and have had your heart rate routinely exceed 140 and occasionally 240 without any chemical alteration, an increased heart rate is bad news. So a slightly less effective but less dangerous med becomes very important.

(The rate of reactions is much higher to albuterol than Levalbuterol for some reason.)