intal

Do any parents have children on intal? my daughters asthma is predominantly allergic apart from viral triggers and when i was her age i was well controlled on the intal and ventolin alone (no steriod until hormones kicked in!!) She is now 10 and really wouold prefer a none steriodal route if possible and was wondering if anyone uses it? Our asthma nurse hadnt even heard of it which isnt very re assuring!!

[KateMoss]

Hi Kirsten,

Intal was well used during the 1980's as far as I remember - It is supposed to be a good anti alergic type medicine. It is still in the BNF and some people are still very happy on it (I tried it then Tilade which was hiddeous!)

Speak to your GP and see what they say. It is good for excesise induced asthma - I used it before X-country runs in the days when I could beat nearly all the boys!

Kate

[yaf_user681_26410]

Intal is still on the market as an type of spinhaler. It can be used with allergy triggered asthma and pre-exercise. Your lung function needs to be pretty good to make the spinhaler work properly. I use it just pre-exercise at the moment. Sometimes I can get it to work really well, but when my asthma generally isn't so good I can't get enough suction power to empty the capsule. A child may not be able to manage it well enough.

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Seans con at Rbh has prescribed Tilade a few times for him to use before sport. He says it works in same as intal. I would say anything is worth a try to avoid steroid route.

Jx

[KateMoss]

I found the original Tilade (Late 1980's) was bitter to taste then tried it again in early 90's when they had tried to disguise the flavour with pepermint! One puff and I needed lots of ventolin. Even my consultant (at Uni) tried it as he has so many people complaining about it - he wasn't asthmatic but he said it made him cough!

Is Intal still available as an MDI inhaler? May be better than the spincaps!

Kate

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Intal – sodium cromoglycate - such a comforting memory.

Like you Kate used it successfully during early teens re relief from EIA and was also able to beat all those lads (and girls) when running cross country! (Prior to that was stuck on ephedrine related drugs such as …ephedrine, which did little to address the relief of allergic triggers)

Intal was one of the drugs I wanted to retry earlier on this year in a desperate effort to avoid a return to pred. Couldn’t get on with Tilade - similar drug as it is MDI delivered and I’m allergic to HFC propellants.( Find them incredibly drying and irritative- unsurprising ‘cos they are ethanol based )

Chest prof and chemist tried to find a ‘mixture’ that would work via the use of a nebuliser because I couldn’t get enough of the spinhaler capsules into lower airway passages to make a difference. No success unfortunately.

But this drug is well worth a try with young folks. Few if any side effects and a well established record for the relief of allergic lung inflammation. Except no one seems to be able to explain why!

Give it at least a four week trial Hopalong. Good luck with your daughter.

Mia

xxx

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Thanks everyone for your replies much appreciated.

I have an appt book with Gp for enxt week and hope to swap if GP agrees. I used from the age of 6/7 til mid teens for allergic with no probs and really dont see why they wont at least give it a trial as far as im concerned they should try to keep allergic/EIA types of asthmatics off steriod if poss so as to give a better range of step ups if needed. Oh well fingers x for next week!