asthma-albuterol use

[patty]

My son started wheezing last nite about 3:00am. Since he has not been asthmatic for 2 yrs i did not have albuterol. So we went to emergency for albuterol.

 

Does anyone out there use albuterol or steriod (flonvent) for asthma? I am concerned about the medication impact on his tics. After the albuterol wore off, he made some throat sound. I am very worry!

 

I am off to fill his prescription and will be seeing his pediatrician today.

 

Pat

[kim]

Patty,

 

I'm so sorry you/your little guy are going through this scare. I have often wished I would have found this forum when the kids were younger so I would have been aware of some of the things that I am now, but on the other hand, I know I would have worried and obsessed more too.

 

Both boys were given albuterol treatments in Peds office and rx for home use. Oldest, a lot more than his younger brother. I know it would wind him up. He would say that his heart would pound. After discovering this forum, I resisted whenever they recommended it. It was always for a respiratory illness, neither were ever diagnosed with asthma altho Dr. would always comment on "illness induced asthma." I don't ever remember any explosion in tics with it's use.

 

I can't say if it truly increased tics as both boys were always "ticcier" at the onset of an illness anyway. When they were flat out sick, they would never tic. It seemed to be at onset or after.

 

Try not to worry too badly. If your son has had albuterol before, even if he does have a mild increase, I'm hopeful it will pass quickly. Patty, you have done sooo much to help your son gain good health, have faith! There is only so much we can do, the rest lies in the hands of someone with a whole lot more control than we have. Prayers are with you and your family.

 

Please keep us updated on how he's doing.

 

Hugs

 

Kim

[CSP]

HI Patty,

 

My son had to have albuteral once, it was before his DX with TS, but I'm sure it was around the age (8/9) I saw some little odd things going on. I think if the albuteral had caused any tics I would have really been wondering what was up with him. As far as I can remember he had nothing that would have started the TS ball rolling sooner.

 

Hope that helps, I'll be praying.

CP

[patty]

Thx Kim & CP for your support, prayer and your response to the albuterol use. I really appreciated it.

 

I start to regain some clarity after couple of hrs. of sleep this morning. I took him to see his Chinese dr. and thought that i would bring the albuterol to his bioset practitioner to test for sensitive and perhaps treat it, so he can use albuterol w/o side effects. I feel better with a plan and will post my son's upate.

 

I am praying that we get to the bottom of his asthma. He has not had it for 21/2 yrs., i am hoping that we will do it again and soon!

 

Pat

[momto2pandas]

My younger son has used albuterol (rarely) and I've never noticed any effect. I also have used albuterol periodically and didn't notice any effect on myself, either. I wasn't looking out for it either with my son or with myself, but if it had been a marked effect, I'm sure I would have noticed something.

 

Just our 2 cents.

[patty]

Thx momto2pandas,

 

Thx for your feedback on albuterol. My son was asthmatic up to when he started his onset of explosive tics. He had used albuteral and flonase and flovent before tics and did not bring out tics. However, when he started his tics, my son had various alternative treatments, and as a result eliminated his asthma until now, so i have not given him albuterol or steriod.

 

I live in N. CA., it has been a very dry year and warm, so pollens are everywhere and the counts are high. Also, we had many fires this summer, so the air quality was poor. So i am thinking his asthma returned due to these factors.

 

Have you used steriod for your kids or yourself? and any impact on tics? Thx!

 

Pat

[momto2pandas]

I have not used steroids on my kids. They both have asthma, but once we figured out the food allergies, it went away so we never needed to get into those kinds of treatments. I have used inhaled steroids on myself, but only 3-4 times in my life. There was no effect on tics, but then again, I didn't really have tics any more to speak of by that time, so I probably wouldn't be able to tell.

 

I live in CA too and have also been having more problems with my asthma this year than in any other year since I was 2. I'm not sure if it's the constant infections I've been getting or environmental things like fires.

 

 

Thx momto2pandas,

 

Thx for your feedback on albuterol. My son was asthmatic up to when he started his onset of explosive tics. He had used albuteral and flonase and flovent before tics and did not bring out tics. However, when he started his tics, my son had various alternative treatments, and as a result eliminated his asthma until now, so i have not given him albuterol or steriod.

 

I live in N. CA., it has been a very dry year and warm, so pollens are everywhere and the counts are high. Also, we had many fires this summer, so the air quality was poor. So i am thinking his asthma returned due to these factors.

 

Have you used steriod for your kids or yourself? and any impact on tics? Thx!

 

Pat

[patty]

momto2pandas thx for your reply on steriod use!

 

Pls explain how you treat your kids' asthma. Was it removing the offending food from their diet? or allergy desensitization?

 

My son has been getting food & environmental allergy desensitization for the last couple of yrs. via NAET then switched to Bioset this summer. My son's asthma went away after his food sensitivities were treated, and it flared up, along with facial tic this summer when he was at a outdoor science camp. He was treated for the eucalyptus tree. The facial tic went away but not the cough. The lingering cough turned asthmatic after he was Bioset treated for his lung & kidney meridians. I suspect the lung meridian remained unclear because he is wheezing on the right size more.

 

Do you live in N.CA too?

 

Pat

[momto2pandas]

For my kids, removing the offending foods from their diets - very strictly at first - did the trick. For my youngest, removing the milk was all it took. For my oldest, he only tested positive for allergy to milk, but removing milk didn't do the trick alone - he still had asthma, eczema, cradle cap, and other allergy symptoms. So I asked his pediatrician to look on the allergy test report for anything else that showed up above the other items, even if it didn't meet the threshold for declaring it a "real" allergy (I have gotten used to doing this kind of thing routinely, as after decades of experience with my own body, my doctors and I have found that the "normal" ranges for many things don't seem to be good indicators for me clinically). The two next highest signals were egg white and wheat, and though the ped told me that the signals were not quite high enough to be "meaningful", I tried taking those foods out anyway, and viola, the asthma completely resolved. I have not had to treat either of them with medication except for during the initial ER visit episodes.

 

Incidentally, I was able to put the offending foods back into my older son's diet after a couple of years of being 100% strict about keeping them out. He has had no problems with egg or wheat since the reintroduction, but if he gets too much cow's milk he starts showing some symptoms, so we give him soymilk as his routine drink. He'll eat the occasional yogurt or pizza without incident, though.

 

 

 

momto2pandas thx for your reply on steriod use!

 

Pls explain how you treat your kids' asthma. Was it removing the offending food from their diet? or allergy desensitization?

 

My son has been getting food & environmental allergy desensitization for the last couple of yrs. via NAET then switched to Bioset this summer. My son's asthma went away after his food sensitivities were treated, and it flared up, along with facial tic this summer when he was at a outdoor science camp. He was treated for the eucalyptus tree. The facial tic went away but not the cough. The lingering cough turned asthmatic after he was Bioset treated for his lung & kidney meridians. I suspect the lung meridian remained unclear because he is wheezing on the right size more.

 

Do you live in N.CA too?

 

Pat

[patty]

Just want to update you all that my son's pediatrician recommended using Advair (steriod) & albuterol for my son's asthma. I decided to just give him the Chinese medicine and albuterol only and he is doing great. The first day, he had 3 albuterol treatments and today he only 2.

 

Thx for all those who had responsed.

 

Pat

[patty]

momto2panda,

 

You seems so knowledgeable. Do you know if steriod medication (advair, flovent...) is an stimulant that may impact tics?

 

Pat

[momto2pandas]

I studied on inhaled steroids and other asthma treatments for a couple of years, and I do not remember anything about an association between inhaled steroid use and tics - at least in the general asthma population. That's not to say that it's not there since I was not focussing on it at the time, but I don't recall having seen anything about it. Definitely ask your doctor. For this kind of thing you can also look at www.pubmed.com and put in your keywords (i.e. "inhaled steroids" and "tics") and see if anything comes up. Or you can go to the Advair or Flovent website and look at the "product labeling" and read through all of the fine print, which will tell you pretty much everything that came up in clinical trials and generally stuff that has come up outside of trials, too, if it's a significant concern.

 

 

 

 

momto2panda,

 

You seems so knowledgeable. Do you know if steriod medication (advair, flovent...) is an stimulant that may impact tics?

 

Pat

[kim]

Momto2pandas,

 

You are probably my best shot of having someone answer something (without going outside of this forum) that I have been wondering about. I would really appreciate any thoughts you might have on this.

 

Do you think glucuronic acid, or a lack of, could play a part in the way some people react to different medications? My oldest son has a condition that seems to require glucuronic acid and N acetylglucosamine to form "normal" heparan sulfate chains (GAGS). From recent research, it seems he may have altered gene expression that catalyses these substances. It is just being looked at in regards to neuro conditions. I also saved a site that said that 17 out of 17 autistic children tested low in glucuronic acid. I can't find the part on the site that talks about it right now, but I thought it was interesting.

 

Here is something for anyone else reading that tells a little about glucuronic acid with an explanation of "xenobiotics" first. I think it's an intermediate in the processing of vit. C too? This same son was jaundiced with a wicked case of cradle cap too (also developed quite a case of infant acne at about 1 month).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenobiotic_metabolism

 

Xenobiotic metabolism is the set of metabolic pathways that modify the chemical structure of xenobiotics, which are compounds foreign to an organism's normal biochemistry, such as drugs and poisons.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucuronidation#Glucuronidation

 

Glucuronidation

Glucuronic acid is highly soluble in water. In the animal body, glucuronic acid is often linked to the xenobiotic metabolism of substances such as drugs, pollutants, bilirubin, androgens, estrogens, mineralocorticoids, glucocorticoids, fatty acid derivatives, retinoids, and bile acids. These linkages involve O-glycosidic bonds, and this linkage process is known as glucuronidation.[1] Glucuronidation occurs mainly in the liver, although the enzyme responsible for its catalysis, UDP-glucuronyltransferase, has been found in all major body organs, e.g., heart, kidneys, adrenal gland, spleen, and thymus.[2] UDP-glucuronic acid (glucuronic acid linked via a glycosidic bond to uridine diphosphate) is an intermediate in the process and is formed in the liver.

 

The substances resulting from glucuronidation are known as glucuronides (or glucuronosides) and are typically much more water-soluble than the non-glucuronic acid-containing substance from which they were originally synthesised. The human body uses glucuronidation to make a large variety of substances more water-soluble, and, in this way, allow for their subsequent elimination from the body upon urination. Hormones may also be glucuronidated to allow for easier transport around the body. Pharmacists also commonly link drugs to glucuronic acid to allow for easier drug delivery.