Advair HFA and insurance

I have used Advair 250 for a few years now and have noticed a few of the same symptoms as the other posters, but my main concern is whenever I go off the drug for too long my asthma gets drastically worse. I have become extremely dependent on this expensive drug that I can barely afford and I fear it is just weakening my health while only mildly suppressing my asthma. I feel stuck with this drug now. I feel like a slave to it. It's an awful feeling.

I am very grateful for this blog because your collective experiences helped me figure out why I've been having depression and anxiety. I started on Advair 100/50 about 2 years ago and experienced wonderful relief from asthma symptoms. The drug seemed like a godsend.

However, just recently my boss noticed that my personality had changed, and she asked me if everything was OK. I said I've had a lot of trouble with depression and anxiety lately. I was just attributing it to aging (I'm 54).

Now after reading the many entries here about depression and anxiety, I realize that my symptoms are probably caused by the Advair. I've actually had the symptoms for quite some, but they were subtle at first, so I didn't link them to the Advair.

I'm going back to my doctor to see if I can get off of this stuff. I'm currently down to one puff per day, but I experience serious asthma symptoms when I try to quit completely. I'll probably need to go back to using a nebulizer at least during the withdrawal period.

My 10-year old son was prescribed Advair in Nov 07, along with Singular for his asthma. Soon after taking Advair I noticed a change in his behavior, very moody, quick to anger and was unable to concentrate on tasks. His was having trouble with his grades at school, he went from being a A student to getting C's and D's and even one F on his schoolwork. He also was having trouble walking and could not even run without tripping, he also developed a shaking in his left arm, and he was unable to use his left arm at all, just like he had lost all strength in it. He had the symptoms of someone suffering from a mild stroke. After realizing these stomymns were not going to go away on their own, we took him to a peditriction and they ran blood tests and scheduled a MRI for him.

In the meantime, when the stomymns did first start he even told me that he did not feel like himself, so I immediatly took him off the Advair and Singular. He did go back to taking the Singular again,with the doctors ok. He had been on that the year before without any side effects, so I knew it was not causing the problems he was having.

He went off the Advair at the end of Nov. so he was basically only taking Advair for about 2 weeks. He had a scheduled MRI the first of January. Right before his MRI, we noticed that he was improving; his walk was getting better, he didnt get frustrated so easily, his grades were improving and he was beginning to use his left arm again. He was able to open bottles, no longer dropping things, was running again and was just back to his old self. We went ahead and did the MRI, just for a piece of mind, and everything came back fine. It is late March now and you would never of knew what he had went through. But it did take almost 2 months before the Advair was completely out of his system and all the side effects had stopped.

I would never recommend anyone taking Advair, if I would have left my son on that who knows what kind of permanent damage it could have caused. I am glad he was old enough to tell me that he was not feeling right and I went with my mother's intuition and took him of Advair then. I know have my bright, happy and physically fit son back. Stay away from Advair..