Conflicting advice

When I have an infection I am told to double up on Becotide. My grown up son has just been told he should never double up on Becotide but on Ventolin. Which is right??

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you are right... assuming that your son also has a preventer inhaler. Salbutamol /reliever inhaler should be used as and when needed, unless your doctor tells you to do somthing else.

However all asthmatics should have an asthma action plan, which tells you what to do when. Asthma can be very different for different people, an asthma action plan allows you to control the situation rather than having to run off to the doctor immediately.

So for instance my action plan goes like this

peak flow over 80% of best : take maintenence steroids and long acting inhaler.

Peak flow 80% or less or cold symptoms, up dosage of steroid inhaler to agreed levels.

Peak flow 60% or less take 40mg prednisolone for 5 days, and telephone doctor

Peak flow 40% or less Go immediately to hospital .

So that is my plan... but yours might be slightly different. The good thing about action plans, is that they have been agreed with your doctor, and in my case my consultants as well so everyone is on the same page. That is not to say that we don't sometimes deviate from the plan, but generally after discussion.

this is probably not at all helpful. But as far as I know you are definitely right about the steroids although if one had a cold, you would probably need more reliever as well.

Cheers RI