I'm receiving good treatment for my Asthma from a Specialised Asthma Clinic and have no plans to modify my Meds. However, I recently recalled that, when a child, I use to be given ephedrine tabs for asthma and was greatful for them.
Just wondering if anyone with asthma is still treated with Ephedrine?
Thanks in advance for any reply.
I think it maybe went out of general use years ago, but I remember my Dad had what I think was an old Rybar inhaler (google it boys & girls) which I think administered ephedrine, as I know they often did. It came in liquid form & had to be poured in somehow, then you'd squeeze the bulb which created a spray to inhale. I think it was one of the first ever reliver inhalers (not that I ever recall it doing him much good).
I remember the first time he got me an inhaler around 1971/2 (it was an orange Intal Spinhaler) being really upset that I didn't have one like my Dad!
I wonder if that was what my father had? He died from asthma in 1950, before modern medications. I was far too small to remember, but my mother often told me it would block, and she had to clear it with a pin, while my father wheezed away, desperate to use it. Thank you, modern medicine!
But on the plus side those orange intal spinhalers really did work - or they did with me. Only downside was the (albeit brief) splitting headache I got when I used it to relieve an exacerbation. The spinhaler changed my life:-).
Me too. I remember being able to run in the playground - an amazing feeling. I was the only kid in school with one though (how times change) & it was a bit embarrassing with the racket it made if I had to take it during a lesson. Definitely a wonder drug of its day though.
From memory, isn' ephedrine something that can be used to stabilise reactivity to allergens? But with potentially nasty side effects? I think my daughter got that very briefly, from a herbalist, when she was struggling with bad hay fever and side effects from antihistamines. It helped a lot just then, but she has since worked out what antihistamines work for her. If I am right, she has also learned enough about epiphedrine not to go back there......if I am right.
I have a feeling that ephedrine got phased out when it became popular as speed. I loved it! Massive burst of energy followed, admittedly, by exhaustion, but it was great while it lasted. Children with asthma were rather wrapped in cotton wool when I was a child, but now exercise is encouraged, that is better all round. Moreover, the medications are massively improved.
Presumably you weren't a child in the 1960s:-). The problem then was convincing doctors that a child had asthma. Even once I was diagnosed as asthmatic (and it took 5 years of fighting the GP for a referral to a paediatrician before it was confirmed) I certainly wasn't dissuaded from doing exercise? No wrapping up in cotton wool then:-).
In my case, there was no doubt I had asthma, but my GP held a firm view that inhalers were addictive & if I took one it would stop me growing out of it; hence I was about 8 before I got one. Thank you Dr. Milner for wrecking my lungs!
I was eight too - my symptoms started when I was three. My GP dismissed my mother's assertion I was asthmatic even though her younger brother had had asthma as a child and I had had eczema for most of my first year. Instead I was diagnosed as having 'a tendency to bronchitis'.
It's frightening really how backwards asthma treatment was back then. My dad had severe asthma which he developed as a small child himself, back in the 1930s & ultimately it killed him. It must be a strong gene as my son got it badly as well. Luckily his GP told me that I didn't have a clue about asthma management since no-one ever showed me & in consequence he got sorted out! I was actually in my mid-20s before any GP showed me what a preventer did. In the meantime, I'd been taken off Intal & only had a blue one, which I took umpteen times every day.
At least in my case I remained on Intal until I was switched on to Becotide and ventolin, but by then I had moved to a different part of the country and the Intal was beginning to become less effective. Becotide wasn't great either, but it was better than just ventolin.
One of the worst things I remember about my treatment in my teens/early 20s is that twice I was prescribed becotide. One time was when I was in London & had a bad attack. The doc gave me one but just said 'this might help you'. I was in a bad way, took it, got zero effect & so I binned it. It was nearly a decade later before a doc explained what I was actually supposed to do with it.
At least I did get the right advice. Only problem was that when the first becotide inhaler (becotide 50) was not as effective as it might be, I was ignored when I tried to flag up the fact. It wasn't until a severe exacerbation in response to pneumonia landed me in hospital that the dose was increased. Even so it wasn't until I was put on flixotide seven years later that I felt my asthma was fully controlled again.
I wish I could still get ephedrine as I was given it also....now it's just those dam inhalers which clog up your throat.
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