You won’t believe this!!! For those of us that have suffered with a dairy allergy and are using inhalers—you know the “twist pill” kind (there are many other brands/names of them as well that also contain dairy)–well, the inhaler actually contains DAIRY!!!! I’m so mad and upset about this. I have been using this inhaler for approximately 10 years. ADVAIR INHALER CONTAINS DAIRY.
As you might have guessed, it has caused me tremendous hardship. I use Advair as prescribed by my doctor, when I get a nasty virus/cold that goes into my lungs. She says to use it for a good week to see if it helps get the asthma under control. Over the past approx 10 years, I have had a bout of viral-induced asthma like this almost once a year or every other year. Guess what happens when I start using Advair? Yup, you guessed it, I get worse. It’s an accumulative effect. First day I’m good; 2nd day I’m not as good….by the 4th day my asthma is worse and I’m sucking on my emergency inhaler (albuterol) every 3-4 hours. By the 7th day I’m in seeing my doctor telling her I cannot breathe. Then I’m typically prescribed an oral steroid, at which time I go off of the Advair, and then it magically clears up.
Not this time people! I somehow, by the grace of God, started looking up ingredients in medications, specifically my inhalers. I stumbled upon the information that Advair, and other inhalers like Advair (that have the twist/pill inhaling thing) have MILK/LACTOSE in there. WHAT!!!!?????? Are you kidding me!!!???
I have never told my pharmacist all of my food allergies because I never thought there would be milk in pharmaceuticals. It just simply never occurred to me. I phoned my local pharmacist to discuss this with him–asked him to put all my food allergies in his database (dairy, soy, nuts, corn). Then I asked him to see if I was prescribed Advair if it would be flagged. He tested this and as suspected, it does NOT flag me. He thinks that it only flags “active ingredients” is his suspicion.
I have no doubt that Advair and other inhalers are helping lots of lots of people with their asthma as it’s a great drug!! However, for those of us that have a dairy allergy, it’s actually doing more harm than good and we need to know this information.
LET’S GET PHARMA TO LABEL ALL INGREDIENTS IN THEIR DRUGS SO THE CONSUMER CAN REVIEW FOR THEIR OWN FOOD ALLERGIES. I know that those with Celiac fight this battle to know what’s in everything, and it’s especially hard to figure out medications. Apparently if the inactive ingredient is less that XXXX (??) maybe they don’t have to list it or flag it? I’m not done with this one folks!!
You are what you eat, right? 