What next?

Hey,

I've had another rough week with my asthma, managed to persuade my GP I didn't need hospitalising on Monday, but hes had me back in the surgery everyday this week to check my oxygen sats and to see how I've been doing. Fortunatly I'm much better now, so going to start decreasing my 60mg of pred down tomorrow.

My asthma is out of control, and I'm desperate to try and get some control back, and get a good nights sleep! I've been in and out of hospital a fair bit in the last year and I'm starting to get fed up.I was wondering if anyone knowes what the next step for me will be? as my GP didn't seem to have any ideas. At the moment my meds are; Seretide 250 2puffs twice a day, montelukast 10mg at night, uniphyillin twice a day, pred between 25-60 (and calci chew), salbutomol, and salbutomol nebs. I've tried symbricort which didn't work for me and cetrizine 10mg which gave me a bad rash so was taken off it, and I don't know whats happening with Xolair as I don't think my ige levels are high enough to qualify for it. Is there anything else I could try?

thank you ally xx

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I only discovered this recently but they can add in an orange inhaler as well as your purple one (seretide) that is what my consultant has done and it has made the world of difference, it is a very high inhaler steriod dose in total but it has meant i could reduce pred, down to 2.5mg although my asthma is not happy this low so after bank hol i will be ringing nurse, or going to emergency ppl if it get any worse before this. but yes you could add in an orange inhaler (flixotide), talk to your consultant about this option.

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Ask for a referal to a difficult asthma centre, Heartlands would be the logical choice.

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hey,

Bex my consultant specialises in difficult asthma and works at Heartlands. I asked him today about flixotide and he said that he doesn't think any more added inhaled steroid would help, as I'm already on flixotide (within my purple inhaler). However he has suggested a few things that were going to try salbutomol tablets and atrovant and hes going to try and push xolair for me... So I don't feel quite so fed up as i feel there are still more options compared to the sub cut that my GP was saying he thought would be the next step, so I'm much happier. I'm going back to my con in 2 weeks when hopefully i'll be over this flare up and be on less pred ready to start either atrovant or salbutomol tablets.

thanks for you help,

ally