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Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Asthma / January 2007PREVENT ASTHMA
I have been plagued with asthma for over 50 years. Every doctor has told me (and my daughter, who also has asthma) to use Albuterol. We just kept puffing all day year after year. I was in Brazil to have some plastic surgery, but the surgeon said I must see a cardiologist before he started cutting. I would guess he did not want me to die on his watch. The cardiologist said my heart was fine, but said I hear lots of noise in your lungs. He asked what I have been using. I said Albuterol, which even on their label mentions arrhythmia. Since I discontinued the Albuterol, I have not had a single tachycardia attack. I had been plagued with this as well as asthma for all those years. He gave me a better puffer prescription, however I never had to use it, He asked why I do not prevent it in the first place. He gave me a prescription that prevented the wheezing This is FLUIR (fumarato de formoterol) which is a small capsule of powder that is inhaled twice a day. This was in Nine years ago, and I nor my daughter have not had even a hint of a wheeze since. Thought you should look into this....... My cost per day is $ 2.00 for the combination. medication is cheap in Brazil. Schering-Plough makes the FLUIR, They do not make this here for the American Market. I telephoned my local pulmonary man and told him this and he feverishly wrote down this information as he is constantly prescribing Albuterol as the only method he knows. The Brazilian Cardiologist who gave me this information said "What kind of doctors do you have in the US"? I told him my opinion which is that they are only interested in making money and have no interest in helping their patients. He has heard that before from Many Americans. I have sent the above the American Lung Association before, but they would rather just raise money and give it to their officers...................... lou@angelic.com Hi Lou Angel: You made the same posting on this Newsgroup back in Sept 12, 2003. The link to that posting in Google Groups is: http://groups.google.pn/group/alt.support.asthma/tree/browse_frm/month/2003-09/7 e867c1543b7b578?rnum=211&_done=%2Fgroup%2Falt.support.asthma%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fmont h%2F2003-09%3F Your posting is near the bottom of the long page. In the three plus years since your earlier posting, has FLUIR (fumarato de formoterol) been tested by the FDA? I visited the Schering-Plough website and found their 2006 annual report to shareholders at the URL: http://www.schering-plough.com/pdf/proxy2006.pdf There is NO mention of FlUIR or fumarato de formoterol in their report. If this were a promising medical product, you'd expect them to mentions it in this report. I'm pleased that you and your daughter are able to use this "foreign medicine" and find relief from your asthma symptoms. There must be some kind of Asthma medical group or society in Brazil that is familiar with this product. Do you have URL to such a group? I look forward to your followup comments. Regards, Al Gershen Grants Pass, OR gassyal@hotmail.com Lou Angel wrote on Mon, Jan 22 2007 5:49 pm: > I have been plagued with asthma for over 50 years. > [quoted text clipped - 52 lines] > > lou@angelic.com Interesting would like to hear more on this but isn't flur a medication from a pharmacy that tries to make money. As for American Lung Association, there is allot of help they have done but they don't ususally offer good advice about how to avoid asthma. I wrote them many times why they don't recommend people leaving areas with F rated air ( their rating system) and I got one response one time. Something like the air changes are so variable, that even if you move into cleaner air you might not be assuring yourselve a healtheir life. I think this is a lame answer. There are things one can do to assure better chance to get clean air, but it take a few recommendations and political concerns the American Lung Association doesn't want to get into. > I have been plagued with asthma for over 50 years. > [quoted text clipped - 53 lines] > > lou@angelic.com >>The Brazilian Cardiologist who gave me this information said >>"What kind of doctors do you have in the US"? >>I told him my opinion which is that they are only interested in making >>money >>and have no interest in helping their patients. Wrong answer, Lou. The kind of doctors we have in the U.S. are those who can only prescribe what the pharmaceuticals decide to put out into the U.S. market. If they're not selling it here, why would you expect the doctor to prescribe it, and where would the patient get it? Doctors in the U.S. couldn't prescribe it if they wanted to. I know there are a lot of really bad doctors out there, and a lot of them don't think, they just practice by rote, but you can't blame this one on them. I'm not surprised it's not mentioned in the annual report, because it's not a new product, and probably isn't working for everyone the way it works for you. If it was that effective in a high population of people, I believe they would be marketing it globally at extremely jacked up prices. > He gave me a prescription that prevented the wheezing > > This is FLUIR (fumarato de formoterol) which is a small capsule of powder > that is inhaled twice a day. What he probably gave you is Foradil Aerolizer, formoterol fumarate inhalation powder, manufactured by Schering and is indeed available and fairly widely prescribed in the US, in fact it is one of the asthma medications of choice in the VA formulary. It is a pity you do not know what you are talking about when you gleefully and stupidly criticize the US medical establishment. You know far less than you think you do. pavane >> He gave me a prescription that prevented the wheezing >> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > pavane When I looked up fumarato de formoterol I found references to both just plain old formoterol (which would not be any better than albuterol in general and worse in oral form) and formoterol combined with budesonide. Since he mentions preventing the asthma and a combination product I assume he means the later. The inhaled version of this combination is sold as Symbicort in the US. The oral version, which is sold in some countries (apparently), would be expected to give more cardiac symptoms and all the symptoms of oral steroids. As for the rest of the post - I suppose there are still some incompetants out there prescribing several times a day albuterol without preventative meds but his luck with docs would have to be extraordinarily poor for both he and his daughter to have found a string of them. It doesn't ring true. The part about his asthma specialist frantically writing down the name of this new wonder drug is just completely over the top. It is far more likely that either he misrepresents his asthma to docs and so gets only the albuterol, he has been non-compliant with recommendations to take preventatives, the whole thing is a fantasy, or some combination.  Signature00doc In all fairness to the op, this didn't happen yesterday. Even I remembered he had previously posted this, but I didn't realize it was posted in '03. It's possible '03 wasn't his first post about this either, but assuming it was, let me say that I do think it's possible to go to two or three doctors and get the same old tired advice from all of them. I know that happened to me when I had asthma. And in certain parts of the country, you can almost bet on that happening. Example I know I've emailed you about previously, doc: My company did a study on minimally-invasive knee and hip replacement in '04 and in certain parts of the country there was no such thing. Doctors were still cutting from the mid-thigh down to the shin to replace a knee. I know for a fact there are pockets of the country, and not a small amount of them, where they just don't do a good job of keeping up on the latest medication or procedures, and they don't necessarily have to be in Podunksville, USA, either. The VA is even worse regardless of where they're located. Changing the subject....... Has anyone heard from Jack Mallory? I was part of his email group and I haven't gotten anything from him in a while. When I realized that yesterday, I looked up his posting history and see he hasn't posted since April of '06. I emailed him at two addresses but haven't heard back and haven't gotten anything back rejecting the email, but sometimes that takes a few days. I hope he's okay. > In all fairness to the op, this didn't happen yesterday. Even I > remembered he had previously posted this, but I didn't realize it was [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > and they don't necessarily have to be in Podunksville, USA, either. The > VA is even worse regardless of where they're located. It is amazing how appropriate your observation about people who "get the same old tired advice..." is to your gratuitous slam at the VA system. It may be time for you to update your information, start with a tour through Google and take a look at the Newsweek article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11844694/ . I am not speaking frivolously, two years ago I was diagnosed with lung cancer, underwent all of the necessary diagnostic routines, lung resection, chemotherapy and radiation therapy under VA care, who continue to exercise very close monitoring of this high mortality disease. Thanks to the meticulous and highly current efforts of the VA I am now showing no evidence of disease, and can very favorably compare my VA experiences with those of people I know who have gone through similar trauma within the private medical sector. The thousands of professionals who comprise the VA deserve far better than the disdain that you exhibit. pavane Pavane, I'm only quoting those who have complained here in the past about the VA, as well as those I've encountered along the way when doing various studies. I'm thrilled your experience was great and you got through your medical crisis, but please don't think your experience trumps the experiences of others. > It is amazing how appropriate your observation about people who "get the > same > old tired advice..." is to your gratuitous slam at the VA system. The problem with military medicine is that it is spotty. It used to be uniformly bad and they have come a long way but the improvements haven't been even across the board. My organization has the local tricare/USFHP contract which is the military insurance. We see the retired military and the families of active military. They are a mobile bunch so we get a lot of new patients transferring in along with their records (and probably a lot transferring out but we are not as aware of them). The care at Bethesda is excellent and some VA's like the Baltimore and Washington D.C. VA's are very good. I've also seen medicine that is breath-taking in its incompetance. VA's that are affiliates of Univerosty teaching systems are usualy good. The docs are basically the university professors and residents/ students. The ones that are free standign and not associated with a University system tend to be the ones to watch out for. In the past the military would only let its docs get the bare level of training neccesary to be legal and it showed. They are gettig better trained people now (usually). Signature00doc |
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