Albuterol Sulfate HFA and albuterol

I've had asthma for well over 20 years (I'm 31) and I feel as if my problems are stemmed from the new inhaler. I've taken albuterol, advair, singular all fine with no problems. A couple of months ago I tried the new inhaler and thought nothing of it but the bad taste. About a month later I noticed a white patch/bump on the roof of my mouth where the hard palate meets the soft. Went to an ENT, biopsied it, and it came back negative; they wrote it off as just an abnomality. Well I went back to my old inhaler and I noticed that the bump was still there but hardly noticeable. I am now on the new inhaler again and the bump is back full force. I also have been getting headaches and sinus pressure headaches around my eyes & nose. I've never had this before.
I wonder if there is something we can do to fight for the old version to remain on the market.

Anybody else have anything similar??

I have used the old form of albuterol safely and effectively for nearly 30 years. I just was made to switch to albuterol sulfate and have instantly had awful reactions. My lungs feel awful. Feel itchy and close up and uncontrollable coughing followed by continued shortness of breath and light hotheadedness and disorientation.

I am concerned about the environment too, but why should I die of an asthma attack to reduce a tiny amount of CFC's.

I am really terrified. Which of course makes my asthma worse just to panic.

Wow am I glad I found this page. I thought I had a brain tumor or something.

I had taken an albuterol inhaler years ago with good results. I saw a doctor recently and mentioned I had been using an OTC epinephrine inhaler to control my asthma. He recommended I go to something... gentler? So he gave me prescriptions for Singulair and Ventolin HFA.

Two days later, I got the worst headache of my life. I thought I was going through withdrawal from caffeine or sugar (which I began as a result of seeing the doctor). FIVE DAYS LATER I was still fighting it. Not withdrawal, not for that long. Since I'd taken Albuterol before, I suspected the Singulair.

I was fine for a couple weeks, until the headaches inexplicably came back. They were focused around the sinuses, so I was popping decongestants, antihistamines, snorting Afrin, using a Neti-Pot, you name it. I got periodic relief but nothing lasting.

Finally I decided to go off the Albuterol, thinking that because I was older, I had maybe developed a new sensitivity. Within 24 hours my headache cleared, and it hasn't come back. Only then did I start searching the internet for side effects, and I can only conclude that I am sensitive to the new propellant.

Thanks for posting your experiences. You can also tell the FDA about this problem by going to ******

I just started using the Teva Albuterol Sulfate HFA Inhaler three weeks ago, and have had breathing problems since the beginning of use. I have bronchitis, which is not getting better on antibiotics and am coughing up huge amounts of phlem. I am also hoarse and that is getting worse. I had only one or two puffs left of my older albuterol inhaler and had relief as long as that lasted. I have had headaches, nausea, stomach upset as well. This is a dangerous product.

Albuterol HFA is literally killing me.

I have had asthma all my life and I know how to manage it very well. 8 weeks ago I came down with a chest cold which aggravated my asthma. So I started using the new inhalers... 8 weeks, three different antibiotics, and two HFA inhalers later, I'm barely keeping from being hospitalized... lungs are filled with brown crap.... blew out a major blood vessel in my eye from the coughing yesterday... now have fiull-blown pneumonia....

....and I just figured out that it is indeed the propellant is killing me. I found one of my old CFC inhalers, used it, and instantly feel much MUCH better. There's no doubt.

I am very very angry, and very very ill...

OMG....

I get HEADACHES that don't go away. I know this a listed side-efect, but I was given this inhaler the last time I got Bronchitis. The name Albuterol was in the name of the inhaler so I assumed it was like other inhalers I was given when I would get bad Bronchitis (turns out it was Albuteral Sulfate HFA). The Bronchitis I get, happens at least once every 2 years and on down years mabe twice a year or twice every 15 months. I don't smoke, rarely drink, have no medical conditions (including Asthma), and I'm in the fitness industry, so I'm in great shape, eat a damn good diet, etc.. But nothing can overcome, either bad luck or bad genes or certain physical weaknesses. Not sure which it is that makes me so susceptible to Bronchitis, but I have to deal with it quite often it seems. It happens the same way each time - Beginning with a sore throat & stuffy head (no headache just horribly stuffed up) then after 3-5 days the sore thoat goes away and it moves down into my chest to a cough, then in about 48hrs it turns into full-blown Bronchitis where I can't breathe w/o wheezing and eventually coughing - nights are the worst.
So I go to my doctor and am prescribed antibiotics, sometimes narcotic cough syrup (yum) and an inhaler. It was ALWAYS just Albuterol in th past ( I know it was different because there was no 'Sulfate' or 'HFA' in the name and the inhaler looked different (color, length, even the horrible aftertaste it gave - but I knew it worked). With this Albuterol Sulfate HFA inhaler, yes it has a different color, packaging, length etc.. and all together which I would chalk up to no big deal (I'm not a M.D. or Pharmacist, so maybe it's a different company making the same medication). But the addition of 'Sulfate on the end of the name and the missing horrible aftertaste (which I miss only because the previous Albuterol inhalers I recieved worked great and I felt better in hours despite the wretched taste), let me suspect I was given a new inhaler medication. Well I got all better in about 5 days (about 3 more than t usually takes me) and it turns out I was given a different medication because the government seems to think my previous inhaler was for only those with certain medical conditions, was often abused(? news to me, why would somne abuse something that tastes so bad - I guess it got them feeling high - I don't know or care to),
Anyway, this inhaler was also responsible for TERRIBLE HEADACHES ( and I was already sick with a sever cough, congestion, a little fever, sore throat, and lots of yellowish mucus(sorry for the description),. I sure as hell didn't need a horrible headache to follow that, and these would only appear after I used the inhaler (it took me a couple days to figure this out), and they'sd stick around for about 12 hrs. I didn't want to take anymore advil or tylenol than I already was considering the rest of the medicine I was already taking.
So apparently my M.D. could've prescribed me the old Albuterol (I think), but for some reason the government put restrictins on it's distribution, either that or he was very scared to prescribe it. And this was coming from a M.D. who at the same time prescribed 300ml of Vicodin Tuss cough syrup. I know the horror stories of Vicodin, and I didn't even come close to sing all that cough syrup.
I just can't help but wonder why the previous Albuterol inhaler that helped so well over the years suddenly has a problem with the AMA or DEA or one of those agencies. This was the same type of inaler that worked well for my Bronchitis - and I'm sure thousands of other patients - over the past several years.) Again, I usually get it once a year, and go to the same M.D. who prescribes me the same Antibiotic, Cough syrup, and inhaler).
Whatever the case, I plan on politely asking my M.D. the next time I'm in there, but I've read quite a bit about Albuterol's sudden problems with dispensing now that this SulfateHFA has come along.
Well... WARNING: It will give you HORRIBLE HEADACHES and according to the post above me, it might even give you BRONCHITIS!!! The same stuff I was prescibed it to get rid of. This is just a microchosim of a microchosim of what is wrong with our government - in particular the Health Care industry. Find something that works.... might as well get rid of it, because a few bad apples are spoiling the bunch.
Imagine what would happen if they stopped using Morphine or Morphine derivitive pankillers just because there is a huge segment of this country's society abusing them? Don't get me wrong, painkiler abuse has become an epidemic in this country and a cousn of mine blew his head off after getting hooked to Oxycontin after severe back surgery, and when the Dr. wouldn't give him anymore for his pain, he went to the streets - a few months later he committed suicide and left behind a wife a baby boy. All due to getting what the Dr's and specialists told him was surgery ( he was a farmer and manual labor, including bending over, was something he did for years - but he had a wife and family to support)on his lower back that was absolutely necessary, and he was told it would give him a pain free life from then on and he could return to work. So I understand when companies are scared of drug abuse, or use for other than what wa intended. And for the record I'm so happy Oxycontin got their pants sued off for millions of dollars(and on a side note Rudy Guiliani, who wants to be outr next President, lobbyed on behalf of Purdue Pharma (makes of Oxycontin) for lenancy before the criminal sentance came down. And that supposed 'Great Leader' Guliani, knew full well of the misleading info that Purdue gave to Doctors about Oxycontn being a 'safe alternative' to addictive painkillers, and he knew how Purdue spent millions promoting Oxycontn's 'almost non-existant potential for abuse,' even after all these overdoses, addictions, and suicides that have been blamed on the drug. Yet due to his stake in the stock and his close position with Purdue's CEOs, even after everything, after Oxy's horror stories and addiction potential was fully known, and after thousands have either died or become addicted to this drug, and even after Purdue Pharma was found GUILTY in a Criminal Caseof misleading the Public(including Doctors) in the abusive potential of what has become one of the most abused drug in decades, Oxycontin, Rudy Guliani still got up in front of a judge in court to ask for leniency in his punishment of Purdue Pharma.
But is Albuterol Oxycontin - I don't think so.
If you are prescibes Albuterol Sulfate HFA - ask for something else, the side effects can hurt an already bad situation and there is already a different inhaler out there with Albuterol that works like a charm. And it certainly isn't addictive as a dirivite of morphine and heroin - like Oxycontin.

I get bronchitis when I use this product. I have had to resort to illegal methods of getting the older inhalers. I can't afford to be down sick for 2 weeks at a time because a government decides for me that my medicine is bad. I'm sorry, me breathing is more important then ANYONE elses opinion. Especially those without asthma who say HFA is exactly the same. It's not. I haven't been able to tell a diffrence between it and primitine mist. Both INFERIOR products.