Royal brompton hospital, steroid wean and amniophyllin!!

Hi

As many of you know i have been struggling to get my asthma under any sort of control for the last few years, i was referered to the RBH and did the difficult asthma protocal last year, i have had admission to hospital every month for the last 18 months and seem to be getting no where fast apart from loads of pred!!

anyway today went for an appointment at rbh and talked about further treatment plans for the future, i am going to go in for steroid reduction in august and then they mentioned amniophyllin, i am not sure how this is used and just wondered how it works, i think it was a rgular thing ( i have had it as an emergency thing in the past)

anyway i am rambling now the questions i have are:

has anyone done the steroid reduction thing as an inpatient and also why do they need to do the steroid wean first as i havent been below 20mg for 2 years which makes me think that maybe it is isnt that possible and then if they do manages to get it down as soon as i am back in my normal environment i will be subjected to all the normal triggers!!

secondly does anyone have any experience of the amniophyllin thing as i am intrigued how it works!!

sorry for all the questions just feel like i have come away not sure of anything!!

any informaion gratefully recieved

thanks in advance

sarah

[Hidden]

Heya! i am in at the mo! there are a lot of asthmatics here who come in every few weeks or so for 10days of IV amo, i think it opens the airways up. i'm not sure about the steroid reduction, i have never had one i either always between 30mg - 60mg. Anyway its nice here, and they should sort you out and it will be gd to reduce your steroids. sorry i am not that much help!! good luck! xx

[angievere]

I had Aminophylline injections regularly when I was a longterm hospital inpatient as a child in the 1970s and it gave me wonderful relief. Only downside was I was always nauseous afterwards. I don't know how it is administered now apart from that it's still intravenous and is probably done much more slowly...

Sorry I can't help with steroid weaning - I've struggled with that myself in the past! (but got there in the end). Good luck and I hope it all goes well.

[Hidden]

I'm like you, cannot get my asthma under much control and been on steroids constantly for almost 3 years now, and cannot get past 30mg. I have aminophyllin daily in tablets and when my asthma kicks off and I'm in hospital I have the iv aminophyllin. Last year I spent almost 4 weeks on iv aminophyllin cos they could not get my levels right.

Hope you go on ok with the steroid weening.