Question:
My 7-year-old daughter with cough-variant
asthma has just seen ANOTHER doctor, this one an
allergy/immunology/asthma guy. My daughter's been using albuterol
(inhaler and nebulizer) as her rescue med for about two years now. The
new doctor wants to move her to Combivent, which he explains as a
combination of albuterol and atrovent. He says the atrovent will act on
the vagus nerve to cut back the cough, while the albuterol does its
thing on the muscles. The literature for the atrovent keeps talking
about COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Is anyone else
using combivent/atrovent for asthma? Is it working? Better than simple
albuterol?
Answer:
I am using Combivent for my asthma. I was using just Bricanyl(salbutamol)
and I see Combivent is partly Bricanyl and partly ipatropium bromide. I had
a bad cold four weeks ago and almost gave up breathing until I was given the
Combivent. I have found it very beneficial. Bricanyl never works for me
when I have a virus. I have since noticed that I can get ipatropium and
salbutamol separately and this is what I shall ask for next time as it could
be I need mainly ipatropium and just a little salbutamol and then I could
work this out for myself. I also noticed it is for COPD and this worried me
a bit. However yesterday I had a CT scan in London and I have no evidence
of COPD - it just happens to work for my type of asthma. Do try it, I felt
better almost immediately after the first dose (for adults it is 2 doses,
four times a day). My oxygen levels are still down but I do find my
breathing better most of the time.
