inhalers

[juney_99_antique]

A couple of months ago I saw my GP with the sole purpose of finding out if she could change my inhalers as I felt I wasn't getting any benefit from my present ones. I approached the GP as my COPD nurse and myself just do not see eye to eye. GP admitted she didn't have enough knowledge about them so would refer me to hospital respiratory clinic. I phoned hospital last week to see if there was any sign of me getting an appointment only to find that I had not even been referred! At this point spoke to someone from the hospital team who have now sent me an appointment for the 7th January. I now need your help on here as I am really wanting to see how I can improve on the inhalers I have which are:

Seretide 500 taken morning and night and

Spiriva 18 mcg in the morning

I have become totally confused as to which inhalers have come on the market to replace these and the more I read the posts on this site the more I realise that there are many inhalers that some of us take which have improved their breathing. My problem is, which ones are used in place of the Seretide and which ones replace the Spiriva. I have been on these two for five years now and feel that there must be inhalers somewhere which are better.

You have all been so helpful with my queries in the past that I am sure you will be able to help this time. Thank you so much in advance.

PS Needless to say I have complained about GP not actually referring me on which I am sure is a totally fruitless thing to do!

[aberdeenman]

hi im on seretide aswell and while I was waiting for hospital appointment with respirarity clinic my doctor told me double the dose morning and night. that didn't help me but you never know its worth a try. ive seen doctor at clinic and he said carry on with that but has also put me on uniphyllin its early days with them but hopefully once they get me on right dosage I may see a diference I have very severe copd. tam

[juney_99_antique in reply to aberdeenman]

Thanks Tam. Will make a note of the uniphyllin and question clinic. I appreciate you taking the time to reply. Cheers!

[Bevvy]

I tried the latest med to replace spiriva so yes there is one . But am afraid I can't remember names (sorry). BUT I couldn't get on with it. Found couldn't inhale deep enough so gone back to spiriva which I found does make a huge difference to me! Not sure I feel much better but my peak flows are significantly better since I started using it - a number of years ago.

[juney_99_antique]

Thanks Bevvy. Will have to get to clinic and see what they say. I just like to be armed with info!

[notlocal]

Like you I didn't think spiriva + seretide did anything for me so went to pulmo nurse and we had a good chat. Upshot was that I came off Spiriva (no replacement) and the Seretide was replaced with Fostair. Then she prescribed Mucodyne and Uniphyllin. It's early days and I react badly to cold air so it's difficult to tell. One thing, be very careful with the Uniphyllin as it's toxic for some people (me). Nurse insisted on a toxicity test 10 days after beginning. It raised my heartbeat, gave me a bad stomach and weird dreams. Took the test but had to stop with them before the results. Then doc phoned to say that I was way over the toxic levels and should stop.

[Toci]

I must have used 8 or 9 different inhalers but have never found one that works better than Spiriva.