Hi, I'm new on here so going to try and briefly give my asthma history first =]
I've had asthma for years and years as a child, never worse than just being on 200 becotide and salbutamol.
In November I went to my new GPs about feeling breathless and they gave me a referral to the asthma nurse at the surgery. To cut a long story short, I've spent the past 6 months hopping from one drug to another, with nothing improving my symptoms [breathless, can't get air in, can't do any exercise without symptoms, tight and painful chest, occasional coughing, but no wheeze] too well.
My asthma's not particularly bad but just nothing she threw at me seemed to be improving it lol. I've had budesonide [pulmicort], budesonide/formoterol 100/6 [symbicort], Beclometasone/Formoterol [fostair] and am now on the fostair along with montelukast [singulair] tablets.
The fostair/singulair combination seems to be working, although 2 weeks ago I developed what I thought was a chest infection but Dr said my lungs were clear so diagnosed me with an upper respiratory tract infection but gave me no antibiotics and told me to double up my fostair. I've been on 3 puffs morning and evening for the past 2 weeks and have stopped coughing and felt fine again so this morning tried having just 2 puffs. Oh dear.
Have now spent the rest of the day coughing and feeling chesty, been on my salbutamol several times and now feeling shaky [not good when trying to type the assignment that needs to be finished by tomorrow....]
So basically, after all that essay my questions are 1] how long should I normally have to keep taking the 6 puffs of fostair a day, and 2] The fostair instructions say max dose is 4 puffs a day, is it bad that I'm on 6 or is the 4 just so you see your gp if you need it more?
Thanks and sorry for the essay =] x