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Children's health

Anyone else's asthmatic child just not seem to respond to salbutamol?

3 replies

springinstep · 16/12/2010 18:54

I have also posted this in allergies - but thought there might be more traffic here.

Dd (6) is anaphylactic to dairy, also avoids egg, sesame and nuts. Her asthma is generally well controlled, in fact she is 100% well in terms of asthma most of the time but when she isn't there seems to be nothing (apart from short course of oral steroids) that makes it better. I know that salbutamol isn't helping and she says herself she thinks it does nothing. When she was little she had one bad attack when they gave her back to back or hourly salbutamol for 3 days. It was only when they added atrovent (every 3 doses)that her oxygen saturations went up.

I read some research last year that said there are some children (with a specific gene) for whom this drug doesn't work but no one at our hospital will listen to me (understandably they are worried I will ditch the standard treatment and cause her harm).

But I feel vulnerable that we have no drug apart from steroids that makes her better. It would be a great help if anyone has experienced similar.

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orangepoo · 16/12/2010 18:57

My DD is 2 and she has had some nasty chest infections etc, suspected asthmatic.

Anyway - she has the chamber to squirt the inahlers into as she is too young to do it and we were given salbutamol and then another one called atovent/atropene? That one seemed to be far more effective - it is one they only give to children as my DB requested it and that's what the GP said to him.

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springinstep · 19/12/2010 14:29

Thanks orangepoo - we have atrovent now so hoping it works. I suppose one of the problems is it takes longer to act so isn't as much use in an emergency, but will see how it goes...

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4nomore · 20/12/2010 12:31

My son was prescribed terbutaline rather than salbutamol - very similar but with a slightly longer duration of action. Our GP was an idiot and prescribed two "puffs" (it was a powder inhaler rather than a spray) as you would with salbutamol but I found out after he'd been using it for about 18 months that the dose should've been just one "puff" (more of a twist and suck in fact) this notwithstanding, it had little effect on his airways (the huge doses involved with a nebuliser did have an effect though) it just gave him an awful racing heart.

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