Jack'smom: we're trying to avoid pred & dex.
He's on a very high dose of inhailed steriod (not flovent) as well as a leukotrine inhibitor. The leukotrine inhibitor was the problem. The alternative is an antihistamine.
His asthma is following the same course as mine, which is to say excellant controle most of the time with very serious, regular exacerbations. We both tend to skip the wheezing phase and go strait to completely blocked, which makes it a wee bit hard to get triaged properly... gotta take his shirt off the moment you're in the door & demand that they check his oxygen levels, & usually ask then to try that machine over there if they think the first one's just broken. <sigh> Anyway, he typically needs a course of the full dose of Dex + Pred once he's had to have ventolin once. This fall with the extra med, we got away with just ventolin, but did not avoid ventolin. I was on oral steriods (and worse, actually) for years as a kid. (But that was before leukotrine inhibitors and long-acting beta antagonists)
He has only one allergy, not IgE mediated (no evidence of any IgE issues of any kind), to something not reasonably avoidable (why not just peanuts and milk, kid? that would be sooooooo much easier!!!!).
We did the thrice-to-emerg routine with the 5 wk old since I wrote last. Ventolin is holding, but barely. They don't want to presc. inhailed steriods for 2 wks because they don't work "on a population level." We only got the vetolin presc. b/c we started him on it w/out med advice and it worked like a dream despite what the population level evidence suggests. F$@*.
Someone do a longditudinal study: what % of kids subsequentlt diagnosed with asthma saw benefit from asthma meds in infancy? Could those kids have been roughly id'd by family history?
Mom of 1: he's on singulair + an antihistamine? And he seems to require both together?
Hospitalmom: the deadline is to beat the asthma season, so it's soft.
-Mich. the tired. Oh, did I mention *I've* been on vent every 3 hrs, too. Sh@!!# week.)
