Viral induced wheeze: conflicting medical advice about ventolin administration

[Mamascoosh]

Does anyone have any knowledge / opinions on the following ;

1. You have to have a gap of at least 30 secs in between puffs of ventolin ( the actual puffing of the inhaler) to let the medicine reload. Any sooner than this then you are just puffing out the propellant gas.

1. You have to shake the inhaler before every puff

I have received much conflicting advice on this.

The safest thing would be just to do the above but with a restless toddler i need the easiest options - but they have to be effective!

Hi, my DS1 (3yrs) is now diagnosed asthmatic after 12 months of suffering from
Repeated attacks of viral induced wheeze. I'm also an asthmatic, so we have a fair bit of experience with Ventolin inhalers!
We've always been told to shake before the first puff and then after every 5 puffs (if needing to do that many in repetition). Each puff should last 10 inhalations. If using one of the big spacer chambers, you should hopefully hear a little clicks each time the child breathes in, as it indicates thay it's a good deep breath.
Good luck!

And also when DS1 was smaller, I found best way was to keep him distracted by the TV whilst giving him the inhaler!

I always shake after every puff, and leave a gap (as advised at the hospital).

Have you tried making it into a "game"? Let toddler give it to teddy etc? Always worth a try.

This is interesting. My DS was just in hospital with a VIW (no previous history of asthma) and we were sent home with sterioids, inhaler and spacer. We were told to shake between each "puff" but didn't hear anything about a 30 second gap. Does the shaking between each puff dispense with the need to leave 30 seconds?

We were sent home with the instruction to puff 10 and breathe in 10 breaths but then when I went in again later in the day, we were told that was wrong and that we should puff 10 (as in press the inhaler 10) and breathe in for 5 breaths. Conflicting advice within a couple of hours from the same A&E indicates there is some confusion and differences in approach.

Look on the asthma uk website for the proper guidelines on how to do it,

You don't need to leave 30 second between puffs though. Shake, give one puff, count to 10 repeat as many times as needed.

I went to training on this and we were told you always get best results from a spacer. Even if you're old enough to do it without.

Thanks everyone. I will try to post later. My clingy sick child is not giving me a chance....

I gave dd 5puffs tonight for 15secs each puff, shook inhaler for every puff. 30secs between actual puffing of the inhaler. No coughing so far and normally there would be by now. I think to be sure I will stick to this for now.

I have emailed Allen & hanbury who make ventolin to ask about the 30 secs (forgot to ask about the shaking!) but no word from them yet. Also there is a helpline on asthma uk website which I might phone on mon.

I think I'll just have to experiment for now and see what works best :)