I'm 17 (well, one more week and that will be true!). A year and a half ago, I had maybe mild intermittent asthma. I had a Ventolin inhaler for when I was breathless and that was it. I had had a Ventolin inhaler once before when I was 6 and I had a particularly bad chest infection and ended up with Prednisolone, antibiotics and a puffer, all of which I absolutely hated!
Anyway, so about a year ago, things started to get worse. I was using my blue inhaler about once a day. A month later, I was using it about 6 times a day so I went to my doctor to ask about getting a spacer, thinking maybe the meds weren't getting into my lungs properly. I ended up with an Able Spacer. I managed to go down to maybe 5 puffs a day. However, by July, I was using it with the spacer about 10 times a day and was still tight and breathless. In August, I saw my doctor again and told her the truth about how things were going, and she made an appointment for me to see the Asthma nurse for spirometry in October.
When I went, my cough was horrible and I couldn't get through an FEV without coughing and I couldn't stand up without needing to take a breather. I am a trained singer so my lung function should be somewhere around the 120% mark. It was down to 80% which, if you adjust that to take into account where my values should have been, I was closer to 60%. Each time I had an attack it would have dropped to about 15-20%. She gave me Clenil 100, 2 puffs twice a day. Between that and my next review 6 weeks later I had had 2 rounds of Pred. and two rounds of antibiotics but we could see an improvement.
At the 12 week mark - 24th December 2014 - the chest tightness I was getting in the mornings was getting worse and my peak flow chart showed big, angry zigzags across each page. It was Christmas Eve and I was kind of down because I didn't want to wake up on Christmas Day unable to do anything until I had used my Ventolin a few times. The nurse listened and looked at my chart and gave me Seretide 50/25 (2 puffs twice a day). Three weeks later and I was a different person. I was back doing ice hockey which I love, and I was faring much better in choir and no longer did the walk from the bus station to college seem so daunting.
I got a really bad cold shortly afterwards so I had another round of Pred. but that was only to help me out.
February came round and I was back at the docs. I had been yellow-zoning for about a week and I couldn't keep my Sere 50 stepped up any longer because that's not good in terms of the OD of Salmeterol! The doc gave me Seretide 125/25 and said to use it for two weeks and then step back down.
Two weeks later I stepped back down. By the following night I was tight-chested, breathless and coughing. After two days of this I decided enough is enough and that I would step back up until I was clear out of the yellow zone.
A week later I was hit by another respiratory infection. More antibiotics. More Prednisolone. More Salamol (I prefer this to Ventolin).
I ran out of Sere 125 about a week after I finished those so I stepped back down and bam, my lungs rebelled. I went back to the doc last week and got another (although he said he wouldn't put it on my repeat seeing as I have now made an appointment to see my Asthma nurse next week) and since then I've been better.
The Seretide 50/25 was working so well so why is it not anymore? Why has my asthma just been getting worse just as we think we've got it under control? :/