Hi - I'm new here - I have a 3 year old daughter on the spectrum who also has bad asthma. I have a question about asthma meds, maybe someone can advise me - I don't know anyone else with bad asthma, believe it or not, so I need some perspective as to how much medication my daughter is getting. Currently, she's on Qvar 40 mcg - 2 puffs twice a day, Rhinocort in the AM - 1 squirt in each nostril. At bedtime, she takes Singulair - one 4mg packet and Qvar - 2 puffs. She has Xopenex for her rescue inhaler.
Her asthma isn't being adequately controlled by the above - she's needing to use her rescue inhaler several times a week and her doctor wants to put her on the following - or just switch out one med to the following:
Morning
2 puffs Advair HFA 115/21 (this is the puffer, not disc)
2 squirts Rhinocort (one in each nostril)
Evening
One 4mg packet of Singulair
2 puffs Advair HFA 115/21
Does this sound like an awful lot of medication for a little 3 year old? I'm worried about all the steriods - and I'm worried about the Advair because of the black box warning on it. I think all this medication makes her all hyped up, but I do know she needs her asthma controlled. I'm just scared, really, that all this medicine is making her condition worse - i.e. her ADHD/sensory/tantrums/hitting, etc. I take Qvar - the adult dose - when I have an asthma flare up and while I'm on it, I have side effects - I get moody, irritable, have hot flashes, etc. but at least my lungs don't hurt and I can breathe properly.
She has food allergies to gluten, soy, milk and eggs so we've identified some of her triggers. Viruses are also a huge trigger for her and so is anxiety/stress.
Is this amount of medication normal for a child with asthma? Should I just relax? Like I said, I don't know any other child with asthma, so I don't really have anyone to compare stories with.
Thanks so much!
Beth
Hi, and welcome! I don't have a proper perspective about the asthma. MyMy daughter has asthma and all I can say is take your Dr.'s advice. Asthma is nothing to play around with. My daughters asthma is mostly allergy related and she is on Zyrtec, Singular, Flovent, Flonase, and Xopenex as a rescue med. Her asthma has been controlled really well for a couple months now. We see an allergy/asthma specialist.
If she is having too many side effects with the meds. she is on talk to the Dr. about changing meds. There are a lot of different meds out there for asthma now.
I'm not really sure if that's a lot of medicine or not. I would stick to the Dr.'s orders though. They know what they are doing better than we do...although we don't always think so. For something like this, I would stick to the plan unless you seem some adverse side effects and then I'd discuss them with him.
My little Quincy is 4 and he is on pulmicort, albuterol, Zyrtec and Nasonex. The combination really works for him and we haven't had too much trouble with him being on this combination. He only takes the Albuterol when he's having an attack. His seem to be virus and allergy related but his asthma/allergy specialist wanted to wait until he was 4 to have him fully tested.
Karman
My son was diagnosed with RSV when he was 8 weeks old (now 4 1/2). We always used Xopenex and Pulmicort through a nebulizer as well and seemed to always do the trick. He only used an inhaler on few occasions and didn't seem to be as effective. By the age of 1 he was then put on Zyrtec for chronic runny nose and at this time Singulair has been added. Thankfully, he has had no problems with his asthma in over a year. Best of luck to you and your little one. you can test for a specific allergen to find out what type she has or what causes it and get the proper treatment. i have a friend who did this to her 3 year old. She see an asthma specialist and had the 100 allergen test. It was not painful for him at all just itchy. The doctor used the preset allergen tray with 25 allergens per tray and did four locations on his back the probes are not needles but a little scratchy brush the barely scratches the skin and the allergen is in the brush. They then wait 20 minutes and if a hive or whelp shows up it is a positive reaction to what ever was on that probe. the nurse then washes the area off and applies benadryl cream to soothe it.My middle son had his first real attack, at about 18 months. For years he was on flovent twice a day, albuterol every 4 hrs round the clock and prednisone on a month then off for a bit then on etc. He is exercise and allergy induced. He still takes flovent twice a day and albuterol at school before gym class and long recess. None of the allergy medicines seemed to make any difference with him. He is 8 now. I can tell you, the combo of the albuterol and prednisone made him so hyper, poor thing. That was the worst side effect. Once he hit 5, his attacks really went way down. Unless it's really hot and humid, he does pretty good now with the "maintenance." It really is scary, isn't it? Hang in there. Oh, and we have had the nebulizer since day one, also. It really works well for attacks. I think it helps him mentally as well, helps him calm down and not panic. If that makes any sense.
If you look at the side effect profile for most medicines, over the counter or not, it can be scary. Zyrtec has been a god send for my daughter with allergies/asthma. She can not do without it as most of her allergies are outdoor.
If you are having too many side effects with a medication then talk to your Dr., there are many to choose from. If you have asthma with your allergies I would talk to a Dr. before I stopped any medication that my child had been on unless the side effects were dangerous.
Oh I completely agree, zayzer...Mason has to take seizure meds and it's amazing how every child responds to these meds differently...he also take zyprexa for his behavior and I went to this website and I probably read about 100 different responses about how horrible this med was for different reasons, and maybe 2 good responses...Mason is doing so great on this med...none of the side effects that others listed...it really is a trial and error kind of thing with any type of meds!
And glad the zyrtec worked for you!
My 9yr old has asthma...we too have to be very consistent with dust and mold control in our house...we removed all the stuffed animals and things like that from his room and it seemed to help.
Logan was on zytec for awhile too...we just recently took him off.
He was taking zyrtec and signulair and used albuterol for his rescue inhaler...which even with both meds he was using VERY often. His ped added flovent and immediately things seemed to get better...he takes 1 puff in AM and 1 puff in PM.) I talked to his ped about removing the other meds because Logan's problem was waking up in the middle of the night and not knowing where he was...he would be all confused...it was almost like sleep walking...he wouldn't do this every night but very consistently! In the morning he wouldn't remember doing it...I would always make him use his peak flow monitor because he did seem to be breathing differently when he would wake up like this, but he would always get good readings...His ped. removed the zyrtec and we haven't seen one of these episodes in about 4 weeks.
I think it is pretty common to use multiple meds when treating asthma...I guess I don't know if it's as common in younger children, but I do know several older children that need to use several meds to treat their asthma...Logan's asthma started about 3 years ago.
I hate to scare anyone but my son(who does not have asthma) was on zyrtec for his allergies from age 18 months to 3 years. He then switched to singulair and when we stopped the zyrtec it was like a whole new child. he actually started immaginary play for the first time ever the next day. He also started being engaged with us for the first time. Like I said, I don't want to scare anyone, some people in my family overreact to antihistimines. My sister literally cannot take benedryl unless she is ready to sleep for at least 12-14 hours. We give our son otc allergy meds when his allergies are really bad and have removed all allergens from our home as much as possible. I would highly reccommend that step for anyone with asthma. Most people have some environmental allergies, dust mold etc. That means in their bedroom, no carpet, run air cleaner, keep window shut and use high quality filter in furnace/air conditioner, very few stuffed animals ( my son has a few I put in the dryer for 1 hour 1xweek) bedding washed every week on hot and dust mite/mold covers on mattress and pillow. Sounds like alot but it's not too bad and it really helps if they have allergies. Also, about testing, we did it with him and it was hard but worth it. They did about 20 different ones (some food some environment) at 3 different visits. We had to hold him down for it but it was over very quickly. There is some website out there that are patient reviews on drugs, if you read the list for zyrtec it is very scary. JMO askapatient.com