Because I have a lovely asthma component to my CF I get the joy of taking Advair. I like the stuff, I really do. I just have one little complaint. The makers of this medication had a great idea of having a medication countdown. So each time you take a puff of the medicine there is a little number countdown to let you know how many puffs you have left. As you approach the end of the diskus the little black countdown turns red, real nifty Advair people.
The problem lies in unobservant people who do a million of meds/treatments and really don't bother to look at this stupid countdown. Maybe if Advair was the only med in my routine I would religiously check my countdown, but alas I do a bazillion treatments/meds, plus take my prenatal vitamin and my ADEK and, and, and...so this leads us to last night. As I was throwing the Advair diskus in my bathroom drawer about to brush my teeth and go to bed I realized that my countdown showed a big fat red 0. My first though was, "Uhhh, how long has that been there? It could have just happened or it could have been like that for 2 weeks. We will never know. I think I need an Adviar diskus with an alarm or something. Anyone else have this issue or am I just really irresponsible?
I use Symbicort, which is in inhaler... it also has a counter, but I seem to be able to get medication out of it long past the 0! So I'm not really sure. I guess I could be shooting blanks??? I don't think so, though... I can usually tell when an inhaler is truly out. Or at least I've always THOUGHT I could! ;)
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you still get medicine after it hits zero...
ReplyDeleteWith Advair (not sure if Symbicort is similar) you push a tab that opens a chamber exposing the medicine. You then put it to your mouth and inhale deeply. I have never tasted/felt/seen anything to indicate if I get the medicine or not which makes it hard to tell when you run out. Heck, I could be getting paying empty disks and have no idea!
Symbicort's an inhaler, so it is liquid medication that becomes aerosol as it goes out. So I usually can tell if there is something in there or not. When I used Advair though, I could tell I was breathing it in because the powder made my lungs burn... I hated it!
ReplyDeleteEww I can see why you hated it. Burning lungs really don't sound fun!
DeleteI do that all the time lol! Makes you wonder if it even does anything!
ReplyDeleteGlad I am not the only one!
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