Pred helps as soon as its stopped PF drops

[Tinytune]

Hiz is it normal for PF to drop low after taking courses of pred? My husband is 48 and has been told he is being treated as if he has eosinophilic asthma but they can't diagnose yet. He has had lots of courses of pred since January, a week in hospital, various inhalers and now has 200/6 fostair, anti histamines, nasal spray and reliever. He finished a 14 day course of pred 2bqeeks ago, asthma nurse was pleased as his PF hit 600 (that's amazing and it was that for 2 days). Last week we ended up at a Dr whilst we are on holiday as PF is back to 300, he has started another course of pred and its gone up to 400-450. Does anyone else seem to need to be in pred constantly? This is all quite new to us and we don't know very much (as you can probably tell) thank you in advance.

[Eian59]

Hi

I am on a maintenance dose of preds all the time and I up it when I get worse. It's worth asking about it as it seems to help keep you stable. It won't mean that you won't have an attack but at least the steroids are in your system. Hope this helps.

Regards Eian

[Tinytune in reply to Eian59]

Thank you very much for the message, he was wondering if he needed them all the time if that is what help he will do so but needs to explore other options first. Hopefully the hospital can help him on Friday, thanks again.

[EmmaF91 Community Ambassador]

Hi

It sounds like your husbands asthma is really uncontrolled atm which is why his PF is dropping as soon as he stops steroids. There are a lot of other drug options out there before needed to go onto maintenance steroids so I’d advise that he keeps going back and asking about the next thing for control. Sometimes additional or a change in inhaler is what helps, other times it’s additional tablets, such as montelukast, theophylline etc that do the trick, but the most important thing is to get the medics to realise the issue and escalate treatment. If things don’t improve for him with the GP then it may be time to ask about referral to the local hospital consultant for advice as they have more options open treatment wise.

I hope that helps

[Tinytune in reply to EmmaF91]

Thank you very much for the message, he is under the respiratory clinic at the hospital and from our visit to the doctor whilst we were away he has had a text saying he has an appointment at the clinic on Friday, so the dr must have triggered this appointment. He is really scared as he feels ill. He has a quiet chest as well, the paramedics who came out in February had to give him adrenalin as his chest was silent (he was extremely ill) this time the dr said his chest is very quiet. He doesn't get a wheeze until he starts to improve after the predisolone. We will talk to the hospital about what to do next as the things he has had over the past few months have worked for a while then stopped working. Thanks again.