Puffers symptoms and conditions

I have a 4 year old whom was diagnosed with Asthma over this winter. She has always had coughing at night and Asthma treatment seemed to really work. We wanted to take her off the breathing treatments to build her system back up so she was given two months of Singulair. It seemed to work great. Asthma symptoms seemed to be controlled without puffers and nebulizers. However the last week which would be the 6th week on singulair she suddenly had severe separation anxiety. Even at Vacation Bible School which she loved and knew her teachers she had what I would call an anxiety attack which was completely not her normal disposition. I didn't put it together though until last night. She woke up and got in bed with me. After barely falling asleep about 3am she woke up screaming that there were bugs everywhere. She "saw" them and "heard" them and began slapping at her legs arms and face. At first I thought it was just a nightmare that I couldn't get her to wake up from. I put her in the shower and she still screamed. This went on through the rest of the night. She finally calmed down a little after an hour of histarics but still said she saw bugs. The more I thought about it I thought it may be the singulair and as soon as I searched for it I found this site. Needless to say she will not be taking this drug again. We will try to find some other way to treat her asthma. Thanks for all the insight.

After reading the recent news reports and reading other parents opinions on Singulair I thought I should be fair to the company, and to other parents seeking advice on this drug, to write about our POSITIVE experience with Singulair. Our 7 year old son was diagnosed with seasonal Asthma when he was 3. We have him on the Ventilator and Advair. During spring time allergy season he would begin wheezing and coughing on a regular basis. We would then give him his puffers. While it would relieve him of the wheezing he would be quite hyper and out of control. Therefore, our goal was to wean him off the puffers. We added Claritin to his diet each day. When he was 5 he struggled through his spring soccer season. As the months went by he looked tired, very sickly, and worn out. His coach recommended that we investigate Singulair. It really turned his child's life around! We talked to our doctor about it. She wasn't familiar with children using Singulair but she prescribed the 5mg chewable but recommended that he use both puffers before his soccer games. We followed her advice. He took his Singulair before bed and the puffers before the game. Sadly, we noticed that he was completely "out of it" during his games. He had no focus (not shocking for a 6 year old boy), no real interest in the game, and no energy. We just assumed it was because he was tired after a full day of school. One day we forgot his puffers but decided to let him play anyway. He had a great game. During a daytime tournament he was back to having his head in the clouds, so for the second game we decided to "forget" his puffers again. He played a great game. But best of all..no breathing problems. We decided to omit the puffers for the rest of the season and just use Singulair. It worked wonderful for him. None of the side effects that the other parents have described. We use it when spring begins and for the the first part of the fall season. He doesn't use it during the winter months. We are experiencing a real dry March so I started the Singulair on Tuesday. Then all of the negative comments came out. I certainly will not dismiss the concerns of the product. We are watching him closely to make sure there are no negative side effects. So far, so good. And no need for the puffers!

My 12 year old has asthma and has good and bad years. Her asthma seems to be linked with the amount of flu/cold/viral infections she gets in any given year. This past year she has had strep, viral infection, sinusitis, and several viral infections consecutively. She has been hospitalized for masks and has taken 3 course of antibiotics, Prednisone, ventolin puffers, nasonex, and has recently been switched from flovent to advair. Since taking advair, she can't sleep, she has severe headaches every day, her vision is blurred, her asthma doesn't seem to be better, it seems worse, she loses her voice regularly and is up in the night crying because of pain in her throat.

I'm at my wits end as to what to do for her. This has disrupted our lives and she has missed a significant amount of school. She has currently no quality of life to speak of as she is always at home not feeling well.

I'm looking for some help.

Okay, in addition to my earlier post, everyone will be relieved to hear that I took my 3 1/2 year old off Singulair immediately after my last post (he had only had 4 or 5 doses). He has not had another nose bleed, and his attitude seems to be back to normal today.
He's still peeing like a faucet, and again I'd like to know if anyone else has experienced this while on Flovent or Ventolin??
Also...I think it is important to note that I was told by the specialist that SINGULAIR TAKES 6 WEEKS TO BEGIN TO TAKE EFFECT ON ASTHMA SYMPTOMS, so anyone who wants to take the risk and try the drug needs to stay on their puffers for the first 6 weeks.
When I told my son's specialist (a pediatrician whom I trusted completely up until this:) that I have removed him from Singulair because I had come across some rather alarming info regarding it's side effects--would she like to have the printout that I brought along--she stated that they were well aware of the side effects of the drug -- i could keep my printout.
........WHAAAAATTTT?
This is a doctor who, when I asked her if the drug was safe, she replied "yes". When I asked her if it were her child, would she give it to him? She said yes.
Either she is NOT aware of the true side effects, or she feels that the positives outweigh the negatives...who knows?
I urge everyone who reads this: Do not trust your doctors to make decisions about your children's health without doing your research first and asking lots of questions.
I am just grateful that I have not had to suffer the tragic outcomes that so many of you have had to suffer. My heart goes out to all of you and your children.

I have been taking Advair 500/50 for about two years ( I am now 60 years old,) to help control my allergy related asthma (that only presented itself when I had to take steroid eye drops for glaucoma.) While I had the hoarseness, dry mouth and occasional mouth sores, they seemed livable compared to uncontrolled asthma.

One morning about a month ago, when I was taking my normal AM puff, I suddenly felt as though a giant sledge hammer banged down on my head - pounding me into the floor - almost losing consciousness. Then, I experienced pounding, racing heart that felt as though it might jump out of my chest. I turned white and gray - my family and I thought I was having a heart attack.

I was terrified to take another puff - thinking it might be my last. Two days went by, when, I decided to experiment by taking a very light puff, barely taking any into my lungs. (I had been further scared by warning about suddenly going off steroids.) My doctor was out of the country and no one wanted the liability of advising me.

One hesitant puff of Advair caused the exact same pounding - heart jumping and racing reaction. I decided right then that I did not need further evidence to "pound into my head" that Advair was now toxic for me.

The odd thing is that my doctor seems to discount my experience by saying I am the only person this has ever happened to (implying there must be something wrong with me!) When I asked about the dangers and appropriate process for suddenly stopping steroids, she pooh-poohed my concern saying there are no side effects from inhalers with steroids. (Several nurses recently told me that was not necessarily true. Who knows what to believe!)

I have stopped Spiriva and Advair and have scheduled an appointment with a doctor and nurse practitioner who use diet, exercise and nutritional supplements to help treat asthma. A friend has gone to them for several years and is now off all asthma medication, has lost about 50 pounds, has improved health and looks 10 years younger! I can only hope this works for me!

I am also writing Advair manufacturer with my experience;copies to FDA. I can only wonder if there are others as 'rare' as me? If so, let it be known. thanks

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Ive only been on Advair for almost a month. I couldn't believe how quickly my asthma disappeared. I was using my inhaler daily and tried other things but nothing helped. I went to a pulmonary specialist and prescribed Advair for a month. I'm so glad i have to go back and see him this Saturday b/c I want to tell him I will no longer take this. I'm 26 years old and had developed asthma when I was 7 years old. It went away when I was 14 and just came back full force 3 years ago. I would have tried anything to be able to breathe normally again.
I've had the hoarseness in my voice and a bad cough where I'm spitting up mucus everyday since I've been on Advair. I figured if this was what I had to live with to have the chance to live a normal life asthma free that id take it, it wasn't so bad. But this past week I've had blinding headaches non-stop. Ive been nauseous, sweating, coughing, I've been sore like I just finished a long workout, chest pains, tightness in my chest and my legs have felt so weak. This morning I woke up with the worst cold too; which I know Advair weakens your immune system but this is crazy. I stopped taking Advair this morning & I'm going to tell my doctor I need to try something else.

I don't typically write on message boards, but wanted to share my story. I wish I knew about the affects of singular before I gave it to our son.

My 3 year old son was put on Singular and 2 puffers at age 2 1/2. He had chronic coughing and croup and seemed to always have throat infections. Our Family Doctor thought it was seasonal allergies, (and because he was under the age of 6 - no allergy testing can truly be done) so she prescribed Singular. As tired parents of a little boy who didn't seem to sleep through the night any longer, we did as the doctor advised and gave him the medication every night.

Almost immediately, his behavior changed from a happy 2 1/2 year old to a child with severe tantrums (we never experienced this behavior before), terrible night terrors to the point we were having trouble with him going to bed at night and him telling us every day he had leg pain. He would cry and hold his little leg - limping. Our son could speak at a very young age, so he was able to articulate his feelings/reactions to us. We thought we were entering the terrible "2's" late, but through our experience and ours alone I am certain it was the singular. After this I decided to check online only to be overwhelmed with similar reactions to this drug. We immediately stopped giving the drug to him. We had noticed that his tonsils were getting larger and larger and they would often have infected white soars over them. Off we would go to the Doctor who told us it may or may not be strep and prescribe antibiotics, he would complete a cycle of antibiotics and within 10 days the symptoms would return. We demanded we see a throat specialist to see if the coughing/sleep apnea and terrible drooling could be caused by his huge tonsils. He progressively stopped eating his favorite foods and would wince every time we served him meat.

We finally saw a specialist and at first look at our little boys’ throat, the specialist said 2 things: 1) "Let me guess, he will only eat pasta?" - which was the case, apparently it was the only thing he was able to eat without pain; and 2) "I do not know how this little boy isn't acting out more, he has to be in so much pain". The specialist explained that every time he coughed or ate, the infected soars on his tonsils would burst causing nausea and pain. Because it hurt to swallow, saliva would pool in his throat causing his terrible coughing fits. He had his tonsils/adenoids removed 3 weeks after our visit (which isn't done as often as it used to be) and he has been PERFECT ever since. He hasn't had 1 cold, he hasn't coughed one night and he is eating/laughing/playing like the child he was before singular. DO NOT TAKE SINGULAR unless they can conduct the proper asthma/allergy testing appropriate for the child's age. They were medicating my child with the assumption that he MAY have it. The reason for his coughing and wheezing was his enormous tonsils. A procedure which was hard to go through with a 3 year old, but he is truly a different child today.

I trust this information will be helpful to parents in the same situation.

I have just realised that some of the things like itchy feet and sometimes getting really irritable and angry which is totally not like me. Paranoid and having funny sensations in my back and chest. Always had vivid dreams. Now I think I know what it is. Singulair.

It worked wonders for my asthma no more puffers. That’s why I keep taking it

The worst thing is which i believe now must be this medication is when sometimes I run out of the stuff and not taken it for a few days. I gets strange pains in my chest and back. Feels like my lungs are being squeezed inside and mild chest pains near my heart. And weird pains in my lower back.

Going to stop taking this stuff as worried about the long term problems.

Thanks for people who have posted in this site

Wow I can't believe what I have been reading. I have had Asthma, chronic hives and alergic dermatitis on my hands. Have been taking, for years, puffers and Reactine daily. My doctor put me one singulair for the second time, the first time being 8 years ago but I could'nt remember why I stoped until the first night of trying the medication again. With in a hour my face felt like I was in a sauna.I could'nt sleep because the air coming from my nose was burning hot. I also felt tired the next day and cranky. I took it the second day on the advice of my pharmacist. He said to keep going for a week to see if this side effect subsides. He had never heard of this side effect but since it happened twice it could not be coincidence. So I took it the second day, the burning was worse and lasted all day. going from my nose to behind my eyes. I was also feeling depressed and tired. i stoped taking the pill last night. today I am feeling a little burning at times when I am anxious and an ear ache. Even though In just two days I could feel a difference with my breathing and hives, side effects are not worth it I am staying off singulair and going to my doctor again

My son is six years old and been on Singulair for 2 weeks, on the 3rd day he started complaining of stomach pain. That night he had a horrible nightmare and everyday since it has been something else it seems to get worse everyday. Sleepwalking uncontrollable rage that we have never seen before. He gets out of breath very easy and his comprehention is very bad since he has takin this drug. He is on day two of no Singulair and is still having trouble sleeping but the other effects are slowly ending thank god any parents thinking of this treatment for their child needs to do more research my doctor did not think it was the meds that it is just a normal child stage he is going through. (bull-h--t).

My only side effects other than headaches and great breathing. I have found sigular to be much better than my asthma medications and with less side effects. My puffers would cause atrial fibrillation but since I have been off them the afib is much better and breathing is better than the puffers!

Good medication in my books

Have a 20 month old daughter who we were told to give Flovent twice a day. Had to take her off because of diarrhea and globs and/or strings of mucus in her poops. Two days after we took her off, the problem was gone. Now have her on some Chinese herbs and no puffers. Doing very well!`