Salbutamol

[boyandgirl]

I've just been to the GP with ds, 3, who has had fever, chesty cough, earache and general miserableness since Monday. GP says it's just 'a worse virus than usual' (ie a cold!) and there's no chest or ear infection. Phew. He's prescribed Salbutamol inhaler to stop the coughing and help ds sleep. Trouble is, I gave ds his first 2 puffs before putting him down for his nap, but I can still hear him coughing and whimpering now. Is the Salbutamol cumulative, so will work better in a few doses' time? Or should I wait until he starts coughing and then give him a dose?

Anyone know?

Thats the blue one,right? Thats the one you use to open the airways up during an attack. Its the brown/beige one that is the preventer, so would have the cumulative affect. My DS (also 3) has inhalers for similar reasons and we will give him the blue one if he wakes up with a coughing fit.

Sorry can't be more helpful!

Salbutamol is what I take for my asthma. I take 2 puffs when I feel tight chested.

It is not cumulative so don't give him anymore just now. It won't stop him coughing, it will just relieve his tightness and loosen everything up, making his breathing easier.

HTH.

I'm a chronic asthmatic and know about Salbutamol from that perspective but I have no medical training. Personally I'm surprised by Salbutamol as its a steroid inhaler. What it should do v. rapidly is open the airways. To say that its not cumulative is wrong as you can seriously overdose - it speeds up the heart as well so please be cautious. However that said its not cumulative in respect that the more you give the more likely he is to stop coughing. As I said at the begining it should open the airways if he is finding it difficult to breathe. However often if he's been coughing a lot he will have aggrevated his tubes so that he will feel the urge to cough more. You should try to encourage him not to cough (if possible - I have a three year old as well so I know this is hard) so that the tubes have time to settle down.

I'm surprised the gp hasn't given you a lot more guidance. But from my laypersons perspective if he's having difficulty breathing (i.e. wheezing a lot) then give him some Salbutamol, however if its just the coughing then hold back and try to get him to breathe his way through. If he has a lot of phlem on the chest a very good (but old fashioned solution) is to put the child in a room of steam. Last time I was in hospital they couldn't clear the phlem so I was made to breathe steam inbetween taking the salbutamol.

Hopefully someone with more medical background will come on soon.

HTH

Wills - Hang on a sec!! The brown inhaler is a steroid! I take both and I've never been told that my blue inhaler (salbutamol) is a steroid!???

You've got me very confused now.

It is a steroid M2T.

Then why do I get a seperate steroid inhaler called Becotide?? I just looked it up on the web and its a bronchiodilator..... nowhere does it say its a steroid.

I have to say I only thought it was the brown one that was a steroid! I agree with Wills about ODing, I try and be careful when I dose DSs as it makes ME dizzy and have a racing heart, so always a bit dubious with them. We are using it now as his cough is so bad he is constantly making himself sick.

The blue one should work straightaway. The asthma clinic told me it is almost impossible to overdose. A single nebuliser is the equivalent to around 250 puffs - and my 3yr old was given 12 of those in 24 hrs, including 3 in a row.

salbutamol is NOT a steroid, works quick but if taken too much/frequent you can overdose,
becotide is steroid, takes longer to work/

bronchodilator just means it open up the airways,several inhalers do that (inc. steroids)
does he manage the inhaler? salbutamol can be given as syrup as well

Just to confirm - I have both types of inhalers.

My blue (salbutamol) is NOT a steroid. I use this one if I am tight-chested/wheezy/problems breathing.

My brown one (Becotide) IS a steroid. This I use every day as a Preventative.

Thats what I thought folks! Thank you.

Message withdrawn

Thanks Podmog. Yep, ds was most definitely in the unco-operative category. His oxygen levels were in the low 80's and he STILL managed to struggle. He now has his appointments at children's OP so hopefully their info will be better than the clinic's was.

Sorry if I was misinformed. I was told it was a steroid.

Aside from that, a while ago when dd1 used to get bad asthma, we were told that in an extreme emergency, salbutamol can be taken every 5 mins without harm, BUT only if very serious, i.e to get you to hospital.

Oh dear, I'm confused - but thanks for all these replies!

Now then, let me see if I've got it right: the Salbutamol will not prevent the coughing, so there's no point in giving him a dose before he goes to bed, but if he wakes coughing and it's so bad that he's wheezing and retching, then it should help break the cycle of coughing. The bumf in the packet says that I should not give more than 2 puffs every 4 hours, with not more than 4 doses in 24 hours, but it seems from what I'm reading here that an occasional extra dose shouldn't do any harm. Hopefully he won't need that much anyway, as the cough is only overwhelming when he's trying to sleep.

What's a nebuliser? We've been given a tube with a mask at one end to go over ds's mouth and nose, and I have to fit the blue dispenser into a hole at the other end. I don't see how it can increase the dose to 250mcg.

The GP prefered to give ds the inhaler if he was sufficiently cooperative (and he usually is) because then the actual dose is much much smaller than with the oral medicine.

boyandgirl,
has your ds actually been diagnosed with asthma prior to this episode?

podmog, I presume you mean nebulised salbutamol is 2.5 mg (at least normal adult dose)
boyandgirl, for a nebuliser you need some other equipment, it is in liquid form which becomes nebulised with help of a "driver gas". Anyway, an occasional extra puff should be allright for short term use.

boyandgirl, what you've got is a spacer so don't worry.

Ds2 was on a regime of 5mg nebulised ventolin every four hours when he had brittle asthma. The dose in an inhaler is much, much smaller than that given by nebuliser, 100 or 200mcg, I think.

Certainly my experience is that ventolin doesn't completely relieve the cough but it takes away some of the laboured breathing. The thing to watch is whether the inhaler is needed increasingly often and in higher dosages. If it is, that could be a sign that asthma is not under control and additional/alternative treatment is needed. The Asthma Campaign people are very helpful. Best wishes.

There's never been any sign of asthma before, and I don't know of anyone else in my family who has had it - though my brother did have breathing difficulties for a long time, but I think they were resolved when his adenoids and tonsils were removed. I shall ask my mum.

The GP did say that this might possibly be the begining of asthma, but I've decided to take that with a pinch of salt, as otherwise I'll worry my head off. I'm that sort. Actually, I won't ask my mum, not at least until this episode is over, otherwise I might really get uptight about it!

I wonder whether Salbutamol was the wonderful medicine my sister was given for croup when she was the same age?

So after saying there doesn't appear to be any family history of asthma, it would appear that both my brother and sister may have been on the same treatment as my ds!

The best advice I was ever given about side-effects of drugs (legal ones) was to compare the consequences of taking the drug with the consequences of NOT taking it. For some people the benefits will outweigh the side-effects but for others it won't.