Professional singer symptoms and conditions

I am a part-time professional singer and attorney. I developed an odd cough-variant asthma this winter at age 42 -- it had scary breath shortness and wheezing plus lots of phlegm coughed up. I had never before had the shortness/wheezing/asthma, though I have always had allergies and occasional bronchitis following a cold. The asthma/allergy specialists put me on Advair 500 twice a day with each attack, plus an oral prednisone burst/short taper, nebulized (not just rescue inhaler) albuterol (beta 2 agonist), and antibiotics (a different one each time). I also take Claritin, Rhinocort and Astelin for my allergies. I had four attacks of asthma this winter that were treated this way; after the fourth, they put me on Advair 250 maintenance for a month. With each attack, I would get hoarse, have trouble sleeping, and get odd muscle cramps I never had had. The hoarseness was worse each time, but I was able to sing through it at my regular gigs. I attributed the side effects to the prednisone. With my fifth attack, they told me to ramp up the Advair to 500 and do all else the same, but as an experiment to see how this would alter those side effects, I decided to treat it with everything but the prednisone. The hoarseness, sleep trouble, and muscle cramps were all much worse. I found this site, noted the recommendation of several other singers to try Asmanex instead of Advair, and asked the docs about it. They agreed that all these symptoms could be related to the Advair and gave me Asmanex 250 twice/day instead instead of the Advair, plus all the other meds for the attack. The symptoms went away within a week, although it took a little longer for me to get over the asthma attack this time. I am extremely grateful to this site and all the users posting comments. I can sing again, sleep again, and exist without weird muscle cramps during treatment of my asthma. Thank you very much.

Several months ago, my doctor switched me off of Pulmicort and onto Advair 250/50, in addition to the Singulair and Zyrtec that I take. Yep, an asthmatic with allergies...ain't life great?

At first, Advair did control my symptoms better, as I was able to excercise without feeling chest tightness. However, other side effects, such as an extremely dry throat, and hoarsness to the point of pain while talking--let alone singing--has occured. I've also noticed increased tightness in my throat, and weight gain. Now, I had a fairly sedentary lifestyle before, but always maintained the same steady weight.

These side effects are extremely troublsome for me, because I am a professional singer! Since taking it, I have lost the upper part of my register, and have pain while singing anything more than a few bars. My doctor has decided to lower my dose and send me to an EMT, however, my pharmacist thinks I should switch back to Pulmicort. My sypmtoms were not as well controlled, but at least I could function.