Advice about inhalers please

[teddyd]

Good morning.

I have been reading a lot of comments this morning . I have read several times about different inhalers. People are talking about inhalers in different categories. I understand they all have different strengths and components.

Maybe I have missed a comment but can someone maybe provide more details if they have them.

I also see people are anxious about not not receiving letter. I believe I am on the list that I should get a letter, but i did get a call from my respiratory nurse tell telling me to stay at home ,and upping my medication. She did not clarify if it is for 12 weeks , but i will be staying home for at least 12 week.

Stay safe everyone.

[twinkly29]

The blue inhaler is your relief inhaler, which I'm sure you know.

A first-stage preventer (to stop symptoms so that the blue inhaler is rarely needed) is usually a steroid inhaler. These are often brown and will be given at the lowest dose needed to provide control.

If these aren't sufficient to control symptoms, a combination inhaler is often given. These have 2 parts.

1) the steroid bit (and there are several different ones that can be used)

2) a long-acting bronchodilator (LABA), which is like what's in the blue inhaler but longer lasting.

There are other add-on inhalers that can be given and other medication (eg tablets).

There is usually a stairway of the order different kinds of meds are added on (or taken away by medics when things are not required anymore), but different people do have things in different combinations depending on their body's response to them and so on. For example, some people might "only" have a brown inhaler (not a combination inhaler) because they can't tolerate the LABA element of the combined, so they might have the brown at a high dose with another medication in tablet form.

What meds are you on at the moment?

[teddyd in reply to twinkly29]

Thanks