Quote from monacks:

JP3892 I hear you. But I always got sick before I ever started taking these steroids too. That hasn't changed, but what has changed is that I don't get the horrible asthma attacks that I used to get. I used to take my albuterol inhaler ever hour sometimes and I was having to refill it once a week. This went on for years. Now I barely touch the thing. I'm curious, are YOU taking steroids? Boy, if I could be on a medicine that wasn't steroid and NOT get viruses and still have my asthma under control, that would make my day.

Wrin - the BAth and Body stuff smell bugs me and it lingers. So I only use occasionally, but I agree it is nice!

No I am not on steroids but I used to be on regular ventolin, regular theophylline and very high dose steroids for the first 20 years of my life due, I believe, to misunderstandings in the hospital. If I was just old enough to realise what was going on I would have done it all again. The only bad asthma I ever had was viral asthma. I would be admitted into hospital every year in the winter for bad infections. When i was feeling very well, which was the rest of the year, they never once tried to lower my meds or at least take me off regular ventolin which is unheard of.

I believe that my infections were due to the 1600-2000 mcg dose of pulmicort I was taking every day. I don't think it had a significant beneficial effect on my asthma. I haven't had a single viral asthma exacerbation since I told the Drs to wean me off it a few years ago.

I'm guessing that you were just on inhaled steroids, not oral on a regular basis. I've never heard of inhaled steroids causing this type of reaction, I know that oral ones can have that effect though the benefits can outweigh the risks. It's a shame that you appear to have been on all that medication for so many years, but you have to remember that over the last few years so much research has been done into asthma which has led to newer treatment methods. When I was younger I was on regular ventolin and pulmicourt, because that was the best way they had at the time of treating the condition. With the advent of new drugs like newer inhaled corticosteroids like flixotide, and the newer long acting reliever medications like serevent, and the combination inhalers it has been possible to do away with the ventolin as a regular medication and for it to be used as needed. Don't knock your treatment in the past too much, the side effects of inhaled steroids, even at the maximum dose, are fairly minimal, and I don't think that ventolin has any long acting effects other than the shakey feeling you get after taking a lot of it. If you had been on oral steroids all your life for no reason, like a lot of people I know, then I could understand you getting cross.
Please, just be grateful that you are on lower doses of the drugs now and you are feeling better.
OOh, and I'd rather be on an inhaled steroid at a lowish dose than on theophylline, not a very nice drug, far more side effects and risk factors.
Take care
x x x

Well I came off the theophylline stright away when a doctor found out I was still on it. He said I should have been off that 10 years ago. Theophylline can have an effect on the liver as it interferes with the cytochrome system and it is generally prescribed at near toxic doses! I didn't need the theophylline all my life either (I presume) becasue when I came off it there was no effect!). Basicall, my history of medication is one big mess and I urge parents to do a little reading for themselves when dealing with their kids medication because its not funny.

p.s. Even better, I am no longer on any drugs other then prn Ventolin which is rarely used.