Asthma Community

Hi welcome to the community.

Can you give us more history, please?

How old were you when you were diagnosed with astham?
Other than pred, what are your doctor's orders when you get a cold? Afrin? Increased, around the clock albuterol? increase inhaled steroid? sinus rinse?

It would help us help you if you could prov ide more info along those lines.

God bless.
Sonya

I was first diagnosed at the age of 18. I started out with a bad cold that went into an pneumonia and after 2 days in the hosipital I went into respiratory failure and needed to intubated and Life flighted to a bigger hospital. Was on a vent for 2 weeks. I thank the Lord for me still being a live. I have been on a vent 3 more times since. Everytime I get sick I fear it may be my last. That is why I am asking for advise. My orders are as follows... Albuterol neb treatment every 4 hour. Duonebs every hours and I have an order for albuterol neb if peakflow below 160 nebulizer X1 then wait 1 hour if still not above 160 can have another albuterol neb and then go to ER if not above the 160. I am on the Advair 250/50 normally but as soon as a cold comes on I am to increase to the 500/50 1 puff twice dailly. I am on Flonase twice daily. Singulair daily. Zyrtec twice daily. Prednisone 60 mg daily with start of a cold with a very slow titration that takes weeks to stop.

I am allergic to several antibiotics so that is last resort for the physcians to start. I also tried Xolair and the 3rd injection my tongue and throat swelled and I had trouble breathing. I cannot give up as I have a beautiful family but at times I feel like I am going to die when I get the asthma attacks.

I don't know if anything I say will be appropriate for you, so check with your doctor.

I find if I have a viral infection, or what seems to be a viral infection, I have to take prednisone initially for the asthma, but when I go off of it, the asthma symptoms come back. So, I'll watch my peak flow carefully, and take neb treatments aggressively and get off prednisone. In essence, I'll depend on the neb treatments to keep me breathing and stay off prednisone so my immune system is not so suppressed it can't fight a virus. This normally works in my case, but if the peak flows starts dipping again in spite of neb treatments, then I have to briefly go back on prednisone. It ends up, in my case, being a situation where I have to walk a tight rope, suppressing the immune system enough to control asthma, but not so much that it can't fight the virus.

In terms of antibiotics, if it is viral, they don't help. They usually only work with bacteria. I'm more fortunate than you as I can use Levaquin if nothing else is working.

The only other thing I can think of is to limit asthma triggers as much as possible. I have found that if I have limited triggers in other areas (pollution, food allergens, cold air, etc.), then the lungs don't freak out as much with a cold.

I got tired of using the medications and getting sick a lot, so I just look weird and where a mask-sometimes a normal mask that blocks only bacteria, and sometimes N95 which has a viral shield on it. I look weird as hell, but I've not had a respiratory infection for over two years.

Don't know if any of this helps, but I hope it does. I don't know what will work in your case.