I have had asthma from a young age, I’ve never had an attack bad enough that it required hospitalization.
Its normally pretty mild, with occasional flareups. For years I used Primatene Mist rescue inhaler as I found it the most effective and with the least side effects. Salbutamol inhalers just don’t work very well for me, they are not effective or instantly provide relief. I had been on various maintennence medications over the years but they never reduced my attacks, and once I got to the point of using prednisone injections and their horrible side effects and was still needing my rescue inhaler I said screw this and just kept the Primatene Mist.
Flash forward and I leave the USA and once my supply runs out instead of having my family send more I use what is available locally which is generic Salbutamol inhalers.
I notice off and on that once again this medication is not as effective, but I don’t take it as seriously as I should.
Fast forward to sunday, I lay down around noon to take a nap with my son, I wake up with a asthma attack in progress. Take the salbutamol inhaler…um no effect…shit take another puff…WTF!!! Its getting worse…:eek: Its not helping at all, I manage to squeak out help a few times before everything goes black. It was so fast its crazy, I’m told I was white as paper with blue extremities and with no detectable pulse or breathing. Someone tried to perform CPR when eventually someone realized I was breathing or at least making some sound. This was while waiting for an ambulance that never showed up in time. I had a vague sense of movement, and then came to in the hospital when injected with epinephrine and given oral prednisone and salbutamol on a nebulizer.
In 23 years of asthma I have never experienced something like this, later my wife realized her moving the curtains and mosquito net had covered the bed in dust that bothered even her and she has no respitory problems. She had forgotten about it.
To make things even worse the doctors insist it must have been a seizure and I probably don’t even have asthma:smack: I had to beg for another nebulizer dose because my chart mentioned nothing about asthma, the most senior doctor decided it was a seizure disorder and no one below dares officially override him. Even when talking to them they are like oh ok hah I was wondering why they had us watching you for seizures.:smack:
Oh gosh, how scary. I’m so glad you’re ok. I remember reading a story a few years back about a young lady that died from an Asthma attack in my town. I guess the ambulance couldn’t get through a locked gate or something. She was a young mother, which just added to the sadness.
In case anyone was wondering if you have CPR performed on you, if you survive your ribs will HURT LIKE HELL. The chest X-ray showed no breaks or fractures, but goddamn I can barely move it hurts so bad and I’m very thankful for it.
I’m having my mother ship some Primatene as fast as possible, I don’t know what I was thinking taking risks. Local doctors seem to not take asthma seriously at all, for what reason I do not know and I was really angry when told just keep taking the salbutamol inhaler as usual(WTF thats what got me into this!).
You need to see a doctor who understands how to control asthma. Primatene mist is not a good substitute for real asthma control. I am glad to hear you survived, I was told CPR breaks ribs like chopsticks in a blender.
If your non-asthmatic wife was affected by the dust, that big of an exposure might have been too much for the Primatene to handle, too.
But you should probably see another doctor and/or get a referral to a specialist. If you were once on prednisone injections, had steroid inhalers like Q-var (or now-discontinued Vanceril, both of which worked for me) been tried and failed?
Also, Primatene Mist was banned in the USA as of the end of last year. Where do you expect to get more of it?
I had my family in the USA purchase a stockpile before the discontinuation, I want the Primatene to serve as a last resort should all other options fail as happened. Primatene is not a good daily use med or preventative, but when you are having a severe attack responding to nothing else it WORKS.
The local version of the FDA has approved salbutamol inhalers, Advair, and prednisone tablets and injections for asthma. I’m going to get back on Advair or prednisone, the doctors I saw literally said just keep using the salbutamol and if you have another attack as severe as you did come back to the ER. :smack:Yes if I almost die again and pass out from lack of oxygen I’ll swing by, sounds lovely!
I’m going to pay for a private doctor to work out a prevention schedule and keep the Primatene for emergencies.
I have very mild asthma and I really didn’t like salbutamol and flovent, so my doctor put me on Bricanyl and Pulmicort. I find that they work extremely well and they don’t have that cold, sticky feeling I associated with the HFA inhalers. It might be worth looking into for you.
Primatene is crap and should have been banned. Couple doctors told me that long term use of it is pretty hard on your lungs.
If Salbutamol does not work for you then you need to work with your doctor to find a prescription rescue inhaler that will work an something long term to prevent attacks in the first place. Like Advair.
Yes - you DEFINITELY need to have preventive medications on-board; Advair (which is a steroid plus a longer-acting bronchodilator) is a good choice. Can you find an asthma specialist (allergist or pulmonologist) to come up with a plan of action for daily and emergency situations? Make sure he/she knows about your history with salbutamol (albuterol, for Americans reading the list) vs. epinephrine, that may guide him on how best to manage things.
You might also want to look into having injectable epinephrine available - an Epi-pen or the like. If your lungs are closing down that fast, any inhaler might not do the job because it simply can’t get to where it needs to go.
Prednisone isn’t a great choice for long-term maintenance obviously, if there are other choices, but in an emergency it will help.
:smack:
That caused trouble for us, too, about 10 years ago. We were travelling, and brought Dweezil’s friend along. The friend used nebulized steroids to control his asthma. His mom thought it’d be a pain for us to have to lug the nebulizer, so asked the pediatrician what to do. The ped said “Oh, he can just take the albuterol as needed”.
:smack:
Well, we didn’t realize about the nebulized steroids (if she had, we’d have said no problem, I had a nebulizer we could have taken), his mom just gave us the albuterol inhaler.
Within 24 hours, he’d started to cough. Within 48 hours, he was coughing more and using the inhaler as often as allowed. Within 72, I started him on my steroid inhaler (with mom’s permission) and was phoning a local friend to find a clinic I could take him to. He wound up in oral steroids and antibiotics (because his lungs sounded so bad). And mom tore a new one out of the idiot doctor the next time she was in there.