Hi all,
It's been a while.
I've struggled with my medication for a while. I've felt great, until I had to take my Clenil and Serevent twice a day, then I would get asthma symptoms that would take a couple of hours to settle. I've had issues with Serevent anyway and have been on and off it a couple of times.
Anyway about 3 months ago, doc started reducing my meds, and have gone from 3 inhalers plus singulair and occasional prednisolone down to just 2 inhalers plus ventolin. I was still having the asthma problems on taking the meds, and despite knocking off the Salmeterol, was still having the problem with Clenil. Add a heavy cold, and last week saw me on a short course of Pred. That sorted out the basic asthma, but was still having probs at inhaler medication time.
So, last night night my doc finally listened to me saying I thought the Clenil was causing problems, and also listened to what I suggested my course of action should be - changing first the steroid, and then if things don't improve and I still need a LABA I would be able to use a combination inhaler that doesn't contain Salmeterol. Obviously he knows best (?) but he did take my suggestions on board, and has prescribed Flixotide as my steroid inhaler. That's all I'm on at the moment. If things do get worse, then we're looking at a combo inhaler.
But guess what?
I've taken it twice now without it setting off my asthma. It just shows that we need to do the research. GPs see hundreds of patients for so many different ailments, and they're not infallible. I feel good that my doc is working with me finally. After all, we know what's going on with our bodies, and if something's not right we need to keep flagging it up and generally making a nuisance of ourselves :o)
Fingers crossed. I'm back in a month to reassess meds.