Advair HFA and headache

Hi All, I am here for the first time in desperation trying to ascertain if my problems are Advair related. I have been on it for over 20 years (started as a study patient). I probably would be dead if it hadn't come along - seriously - and I had been on prednisone a lot. But, to add a voice to what others are saying, I can't sleep, and always wake with the most terrible headache, along with other general aches and fatigue. I was coping so so until I was rear-ended and developed some neck issues. Now I live with never ending headaches and fatigue and a tendency towards depression. Pain killers and sleeping pills get me through the winter months and then in the summer with lots of activity outside I rebound so that I can go through another yearly slide downward. What is really a killer is that I can't get going in the early mornings and have been hassled by my employer who has determined by a psychologist that I am a malingerer because there is little proof of physical illness! If I didn't have a history of having been, and still being, a very hardworking and persistent individual I would think I was going nuts (I'm 60). If anyone has a similar story, please comment further. Thanks

I have been on Advair since Feb. of this year, I have had a lot of these side effects but didn't really realize it was from this med. At first I was told to take it 2x a day, reading the directions it says it has to be 12 hours exactly apart. My work schedule didn't allow that so I just took it 1x....Working 2 jobs I just thought when I couldn't sleep and was always tired, it was from working a lot. When I told the Dr. about not being able to sleep more than 4 hours, I was told since I was taking the meds 1x a day that wasn't it. After a bad cold and bronchitis I was told I had to take the Advair 2x a day, now i'm more tired than ever, still can't sleep and have a headache that won't go away even with migraine medicine. I'm even jittery and forgetful--kinda ditsy now and itchy off and on all day...After reading this blog site I see its not in my mind and i'm going to stop taking this med. I think i'm going to the health food store and find something natural.

Advair made me tired, so tired, I felt like the simplest chore was exhausting. I was told by the pulmonologist that of course the fatigue was unrelated to the medication. Personally, I think the doctors push the meds that they get perks from the pharmacy companies. They may get good results from 75% of their patients but be darned the 25% that may be sensitive to the meds, Modern medicine?

My mother in law has been told that she not only got yeast in her lungs (aspergillus) from Advair but yeast was also found her gut, and her pylori valve stopped working and she almost had to go on a permanent feeding tube and everything made her sick. When they cut her open to insert the tube they found the yeast. I have something going on that includes terrible headache, nausea, vomiting and loose bowel. I can't say at this point for certain it is the advair but I have been taking it for over 15 years daily. These symptoms occur 2-3 times a month and wipe me out for a full day.

I have been on Advair 250/50 for 5 years for asthma. I'm a 48 year old female. I have experienced severe hoarsness and my voice is rough sounding. Some days I am so hoarse that others have a hard time understanding me. I have had 5 kidney stones in the last 5 years, never had one before taking Advair. I had the last one a month ago and it was so large I had to have surgery. I experience nausea about once a day. I seem to always have a headache. I feel tired all of the time. Over the last year I have developed high blood pressure. I have gained 20 pounds. I have rashes on my upper arms that comes and goes. I experience mood swings. The Advair does control my asthma, but these side effects are too much anymore, especially the hoarseness. I am going to ask my doctor for other solutions.

Been on Advair only a few months. MY mouth is on fire and I awake to my tongue almost sticking to the roof of my mouth. I never really had asthma but I started with a cough after a bad case of bronchitis. I started with Albuterol and the advair next.
I'm going to try to stop this because I'm sure that this is why I feel the way I do?
Has anyone else had problems with their mouth. Doesn't look like Thrush but it sure hurts.

I was prescribed Advair a little over 3 months ago to treat my asthma. It was great for the first six days. No asthma symptoms whatsoever, even after jogging, and I felt great! I woke up the seventh day feeling as though my vocal cords were encased in an incredible amount of flem and my voice went from a baritone to a tenor; I'm a guy so this was disconcerting. During the second week I began experiencing nasal drippage, uncontrollable trembling, extreme physical weakness, memory loss, an unnerving lack of mental clarity and trouble maintaining my temper. The third week of using Advair I began struggling with overwelming thoughts of suicide. All of these things are completely out of character for me. I don't take any other medicine, prescribed or not, have always been healthy and am rarely sick so it was a no-brainer as to what was causing me to experience these things. I stopped taking Advair at that time (after the third week) and promptly developed a headache and other withdrawel type feelings in my throat and chest that took about a week to go away. I also promptly developed a cold that I could not get rid of for a month and a half as well as the flu which I hadn't had in years; I also had asthma related difficulties that were worse than before I started Advair but powered thru those episodes using Primatine Mist. In the month following discarding my Advair disk I noticed a gradual improvement in all the before mentioned Advair affected areas and thankfully the most immediate area of improvement was emotional (i.e., no longer suicidal). One of my vocal chords is still painful but at least I no longer sound prepubescent.

I started researching the side effects of Advair after the second week I was on it and found a reference to it possibly causing an overgrowth of Candidas Albicans. After researching that I'm convinced ultimately that is what I experienced.

So nice to see that I'm not just imagining the adverse reactions. I've been taking Advair 250/50 for about 3 weeks now after being diagnosed with asthma/chronic bronchitis. I went back to my doctor the following week because I was still having chest pain, back pain, felt as if I still wasn't getting enough oxygen and mentioned that I was having a lot of difficulty with being jittery. He evaluated my breathing with a peak flow meter and since that seemed to be OK, he wanted to do an EKG - which he did and seemed to see something that warranted a referral to a cardiologist. So far the cardiologist has not seen anything out of the ordinary.
I'm thinking more and more that there is nothing wrong with my heart and that this is all being caused by the Advair. Has anyone else been referred to a cardiologist and found out nothing was wrong?

I wish I found this site before I started taking this crap. I started Advair again about two weeks ago 50/500 one puff at night and one in the morning. At first I would just get a little dizzy sometimes when I took it and a mild head ache a couple times but the last three nights I keep waking up and its hard to get back to sleep even though Im tired and I have noticed my heart beating faster then normal. I have only been getting six or five hours of sleep a night which is not enough for me especially because I have been surfing for hours the last few days. I do think it has helped my ashtma when I go surfing but after reading all of these bad side effects I dont think I will ever take it again. The last time I took it was about a year ago and stoped because it made me feel dizzy and I only took it for about two weeks. Before I started it again I told the doctor that it made me feel dizzy a couple times and he said people just accomodate to it. Its to bad they cant make something that helps my lungs like it does without all the bad side effects. Im going to not use it tonight and see how I sleep and tomorow when I go surfing I will see how my lungs are without it.

I am glad to see I am not crazy!! I started on advair a week and a 1/2 ago. My blood pressure went up and after 6 days of taking advair my bp was 140/99. Heart rate increased from 60's-low 70's up to mid 80's. I have always had really good bp before this and a good heart rate. I also had weird sensation in my arms and legs and a tightness in my chest that would come and go. I had a headache pretty much the whole time I was taking advair. I had horrible cramps in my feet and legs. I also had something strange happen to my face. I got a strange pain in my cheek that went up to my eye feeling like there was severe pressure behind it and then after making my eye water it went back down to my cheek for a minute and then disappeared. I was starting to get really creeped out by all these things happening so I bought a bp machine and monitored my bp. 48 hours after stopping advair my bp was excellent (106/66), heart rate back to the 60's, no more weird sensations, headache is gone, no cramps in my legs/feet, and my crappy mood has improved. All these strange symptoms are gone! I will never take that crap again!! It may work for some but it didn't work for me.

10/18/2007 I was diagnosed with adult onset asthma 4 years ago. I have been on Flovent HFA 110MG (2) puffs every morning. That seemed to be working fine but about a month ago my asthma got worse. My Doctor prescribed Advari 250/50 twice a day. I took my first does Monday (10/15) and within 4 hours had a horrific migraine, such horrific pressure in my head I thought I was going to pass out. I threw away the Advair IMMEDIATELY however, 4 days later, my headache is better but still there a bit - that intense pressure is coming and going in waves, heartburn that has made me sick to my stomach and I feel this AWFUL pressure and soreness on the sides of the neck and in my throat. Has anyone else experienced this? Any idea when I can expect some relief? Thank you to everyone who posted - it made me feel so much better.

My Doctor made it sound like Advair was the best drug EVER -- that is so wrong.

I've been off and on Advair for two years. I'll take myself off of it cause I don't like what it does but then the asthma goes nuts. So far I've been on this for three days - 2 doses per day of the 250/50. Massive joint pain like I have the flu, dizzy, ear-ache, nausea, sore-throat, hoarsness, headache, lethargy. I am also on Zyrtec every day 1 pill to control post-nasal sinus drip which kicks off an asthma attack. One more note. I moved to Massachusetts 6 years ago from Alabama. I had two sinus problems a year in Bama - bronchitis type stuff and that was it. I was diagnosed with Asthma 2 years after moving to Massachusetts.

I am having severe all-over pain, electrical like jolts, headache and chills. I've had these symptoms before and they were gone in days when I stopped. Now it's not going away after 7 days. Last night I couldn't fall asleep because I was freezing and my skins hurt all over, just like the flu. Has anyone had symptoms this severe disappear when Advair was stopped?

I don't smoke, am thin, a healthy eater and have no other diseases and take no other medications except vitamins.

have been on advair 4 yrs, did'nt relize that my throat and mouth problem until later i have blisters in my mouth and throat can't eat without a lot of pain i have been reduced to eating liquids and they hurt just as badi also have loss of voice very dry mouth,headache,muscle pain and the sores have reached down into the back of my throat i am going to stop takeing advair for a few days and see what happens my doctor says he don't know what the problem is well i think i just found out thanks to this web sight thank you for posting it

Honestly i've been on advair for 2 weeks and have had nothing but good side affects.
I can breathe! after 1 yr of nothing but trouble its wonderful....i havent noticed any weight gain or anything like that...maybe a little headache but nothing else....

I have been taking advair for about a week and I to have had the muscle paims in the night...also I wake with the worst headache everyday.

headache, nausea

I have been off Advair for 7 months now. After quitting, I first got my voice back -- it had been cracking and disappearing by the end of the day. Then the swelling in my ankles went down. I was able to stick to a diet, and now I realize I looked like I was pregnant, my stomach was so big. I've lost 15 pounds on a realistically low-carb, low-gluten diet, fairly easily. I'm running again, finally with no muscle pain, and more lung capacity than I had on Advair. I've had a cold virus twice, and didn't become asthmatic, even though EVERY single cold had in the past. I was up to 500/50 when I decided to quit, and my doctor had told me I would likely have to stay on that dosage forever. (I'd had to supplement with Albuterol when I tried to exercise, and frequently had nighttime wheezes.) She was wrong. Advair is BAD NEWS. If you decide to quit, taper off gradually, over a few weeks. I went through a bad spell of painful headaches in the week I tapered.

My daughter was taking a puff of advair every morning and evening. She has been experiencing fatigue, headache, constipation and urine retention. I've cut her back to one puff a day and will talk to her allergist in the morning.
Thanks, website, for helping me to realize that what is supposed to be helping her may actually be poisening her.

I'm sorry if this is more of a question than a list of side effects, but I am a desperate mother. My 13 year old and her 15 year old sister were both given Advair to start on Monday as a third attempt to treat a severe cough. The 13 year old has been sick ever since, vomiting and headache. It seems to worsen after she takes the Advair, although I didn't realize it until she became sick this morning and missed school for the second day in a row. My other daughter isn't having any problems. After looking up side effects and finding this page, I am sure it's the Advair that's making her so sick, and it scares me!

What do you think? I didn't see any references to anyone vomiting, but I don't know what else it could be.

Heart Palpitations, which makes me think Im having a heart attack. Headache. Just overall Unrelaxed.

I've experienced dizziness, blurred vision and slight headache since taking advair, even though my breathing has never been better. Unfortunately I won't be able to continue this med with this type of effect. I was glad to find this site to post this, since my dr said I should not have this type of reaction.

I have been taking Advair for 2 weeks. My side effects are headache,light headed, dry mouth, horse voice, face breaking out around mouth, irratation inside ears. It does work on the asthma but not sure I can handle the side effects.

dry sore throat, ear and neck pain (right behind ear), upper body break-outs, excessive hunger and weight gain despite exercise, dry cough, headache.
It is very rare for me to have sore throat or head/ear ache. No stomach side effects.