Quick question about brown preventer inhaler...

[Reesewithafork]

When you're taking these, do you still get coughs with viral infections and colds? Or does it completely stop the coughs coming? DS (Toddler) is on one morning and night, but has picked up another cough and was just unclear as to whether this meant the inhaler was having any kind of affect or not. I don't fully understand how they work, it's been prescribed as a trial and we don't have an appointment review until we have been using it for six weeks.

@stillherenow thats exactly what he’s like. He gets stuck in a coughing fit almost and then brings up mucuous or is sick. He seems to get a cough with every kind of infection or cold he picks up as well. I just feel very sorry for him.

That's what dd had. Huge volumes of mucous vomit . A woman in the playground told me about montelukast, and we had it prescribed for coughs, and the brown inhaler, then she seemed better so we stopped for a few years , but a few years later she needed them back.

I’ll mention it tomorrow. He might just need something extra to help get rid of the recurrent cough so it’s all managed and under control

@stillherenow just a quick question sorry I looked it up and could see it’s chewable tablets but as he’s only 2.5 I’m guessing he wouldn’t be able to have that? Ill chat to the doctor to see if there’s any similar options as the blue and brown inhalers don’t seem to be quite cutting it on their own. It’s probably because he’s picking up so much at nursery so regularly he’s not really getting a chance to recover properly so the inhalers aren’t really getting a chance to start working properly as there’s always a new infection or something which triggers everything again

No, it won’t completely stop coughs due to viruses.
our nurse always advises increasing the dose (brown and blue) when unwell.

How did you get on today @Reesewithafork ?

Doctor didn’t want to prescribe anything else as his chest was clear and he was in high spirits. The cough is actually no where near as bad as they have been previously so I think the inhalers are making a difference and the Doctor suggested we up his ventolin so he’s having what we are giving him plus a few extra puffs during the coughing fits when they don’t seem to settle. This seems to be working.

we have realised after talking to the doctor that air con and fans are a massive trigger for him, so have removed the fan he had in his room. That seems to have helped hugely. It seems to be the change in temperature that does it. It’s quite tricky to avoid though, especially when running errands in town and nursery has air con on all summer of course and will do until Late September usually. Doctor said the best thing to do is try to isolate and remove all triggers so the asthma can become manageable with the brown inhaler working at full
capacity in approx four weeks from now, as other posters mentioned previously.

he did say it come autumn it’s exactly the same with no improvement from now, we will be referred to an asthma specialist to get a plan in place, get a chest X-ray done (as he had Covid this year and doctor suspects this is what has kicked it all off as he is seeing a lot of it in young children) and be put under an asthma team ready for when he’s old enough to be properly diagnosed should it still persist by then. Thanks for asking @Muchtoomuchtodo

He doesn't seem to be on very much blue inhaler. A fairly standard regime at that age would be 2 puffs for mild cough/wheeze, 4 - 6 puffs every 4 hours if chesty, 10 puffs in an emergency (but get checked out). If you've only been told you can give two puffs of blue 3 times a day, I would really suggest you ask if you can give more.

Sorry, realised that could have been clearer. Doesn't seem to be very much blue inhaler for during an exacerbation. Obviously if regularly/frequently needing to up the blue puffer, that would be worrying. But by treating an exacerbation properly, they tend to bounce back faster, so in better state to fight off the next one. So worth a discussion with your health care provider.