Anyone Familiar with Pulmicort

Hi M.,
I am not familiar with Pulmicort but I am familiar with digging a little deeper than what the doctor says about issues with childrens' health issues. First I would read everything, conventional and naturalpathic I could find. My example for this is the following. My daughter, who is 30 now, had bladder infections when she was 3 years old. Our GP said this was highly unusual for a 3 year old and initially treated it with antibiotics which seemed right to me for two rounds of antibiotics. After that he sent us to a specialist. My little sweetie went through kidney and bladder x-rays and a cystoscopy. The urologist said her ureathra was too narrow and she wasn't emptying all the way. I accepted this for way too long. I did ask him on several occasions if it could have anything to do with our water since we had a well at our home. He said no and told me she would just be one of those unfortunate girls who are plagued with a lifetime of bladder issues and to continue with the antibiotics. I monitored her myself and had the dose down to 1/4 tsp a day which seemed to keep any infection away. Then we moved out of our home because of my husband's job, just for a few months and I ran out of her medication. Amazingly, she didn't need it. I had her tested and her bladder was just fine. (we now had city water) Hmmm...THEN we moved back into our home and within 3 weeks she had a full blown bladder AND kidney infection. I decided to take her to an osteopathic doctor, one who treats the whole system, and asked him about the well water issue. His response was totally different. He said absolutely it could be the well water. We treated her infection, got it cleared and never gave her well water, only bottled water, and she NEVER had another bladder issue again. He determined that there was some little micro germ in our well that HER system couldn't handle.
So many children have asthma and after my experience, even though it wasn't asthma, I would recommend going to a clinical nutritionist to find the source, rather than just treating the symptoms. One little food allergy could trigger a lifetime of unnecessary drugs and treatments. It could be something simple. I do have a name of a good one in Grosse Pointe if you would like to email me back, I would be happy to share. My thoughts are with you!

Hi M.,

I understand your worries when I learned my son had to use it I was a little leary at first. He is 9 now but at the time he was 2. They wanted me to give it to him once a day. I did in the beginning w/ no side effects. However, his asthma got better w/ the years and I only give it to him on an as needed basis. When I can tell he may be getting sick. It usually will knock the symptoms right out if I catch it on time.

Hope this helps.

My kids and I have all taken Pulmicort at some point, without any problems. I think all meds list some side effects (everything from hemorrhoids to heart attacks) but rarely do you actually see those problems. If your pediatrician has prescribed, I would try it. It was a miracle for me when I had pneumonia. Best of luck to you!

Like so many of the other mom's responses I concur. Asthma is typically triggered by allergies.

A friend of mine, her son, at the age of 2 had some of the same symptoms as your 6 year old. She didn't want him on steroids, breathing treatments, etc either. She got him off of milk, tried supplements at health food stores but didn't find anything that helped. The people she spoke with didn't have a lot of knowledge in the area and really didn't give her that one on one time.

She found a company that is reputable, which is important to most moms. Through diet changes and excellent supplementation, he never had to have breathing treatments or steroids. She also found too that it was the cleaning and laundry products that she was using that flared up his symptoms.

I provide Personal Nutrition Consultations and the first one is at no charge. If you would like to talk and see what we can do for your son, email me with your number and best time of day to reach you.

Warm regards,

M.

When they say use pulimicort as needed- they mean for atleast a month as needed. For quick inhalations, or emergencies you would use albuterol. But Pulmicort is meant to be most effective when it is in your system for a number of weeks, not immediate.
Try starting on a low dose (we use .25) and then double up when a sickness comes along.
Also check that you do a rinse and spit after the treatments, so that it is only inhaled and not ingested.
We notice a minor increase in apetite and emotions in our daughter when we do a double (.5 mg) treatment. But is also gives a her a tiny bit of insomnia, so it is hard to know if the emotions are from a tired girl or an emotional one.
The side effects have hardly been noticeable, really. And they are definitely better than repeating the scary ride to the hospital in an ambulance.
We have a friend who does the daily cingulair instead of pulmicort, so we have been looking at the pros and cons of that route.
We have also had success with flax seed oil ( an alternative to the fish oil). This has helped the breathing and the excema, which are somehow related.

Hi M.- My son who is 2 has just started on this medication as well for the same preventitive asthma- We started it last Tuesday and my experience was the first day or two he was much nore hyper, acitve and a little more aggressive but after a few days he is better- He was also taking steriod, antibiotics and abluterol at the same time- ( so could have been a combination of all the medicine) He is now to continue the palmicort once a day until April- My feeling is the benefits of the medication outweight the behavior issue and as I said my son only displayed the aggressive behavior for a few days after starting the medication

I believe pulmicort is an inhaled medicine.

So the dose of the steroid would go directly to the lungs and nto cause too many side effects.

The oral steroids (pediapred) does cause behavior issues.

The tiny dose of steroids in an inhaled drug is nothing comapred to the oral meds he was taking at the hospitla. He will probably need the drug for a while (maybe a month) to allow his lungs to completely recover from the pneumonia and then maybe you can use the drug on an as needed basis.

The current thinking on asthma is to prevent attacks so the lungs to not become damaged from all of the inflamation.

My mother took many different asthma drugs over several years . She was on 5 mg of oral prednisone for several years to help her breathe. Wehn her asthma flared up her dose of prednisone would be increased sometimes up to 60 mg a day.

I have 2 children on poukmicort every day. One has your full blown aszema. The other has bronciltal azsema. They take singular every day and now two puffs a day on pulmicort. They don't have a change in behavor nor weight. One of them is overweight anyway always has been has nothing to do with the medication. If I pulled her off she still be big. So all I can say is follow your gut and what is saying. If your not sure than don't but I have an extremly good caring pediatrician that doesn't lead me wrong. He treats my children as if they where his. I hope I could help.

my daughter was on it for three month and gained 25 wich made her start her cycle at a age way to young pounds it made her real hyper and and agresive i took her off it took up the carpet got rid of pet stuffed toys and all dust collector

Hi M.!
Whe I read this I HAD to respond!!! I have 3 kids-my 2 sons are 5 and 8 with TONS of allergies and asthma. Our ped. put them on pulmicort and albuteral through a nebulizer(we call it the breathing machine) and she wanted me to give them EVERY DAY Oct.-April then as needed! DON~T DO IT! I do it ONLY as needed. She also gave them the liquid instead of antibiotics and my 8 yr. (6 at the time) went from this sweet sweet boy to someone COMPLETELY different! Weight gain, cried ALOT very moody! It was sad! I talked to her about it and she said "yes-it`s normal, just keep him on it!"
WTH????? So, I took him off it and if he gets bronchitis-which I`m sure yours does too very easily with allergies--I use the nebulizer machine at first signs-and I will put the pulmicort init and do it for a couple days along with the albuteral.
After about 2 years of this and her keep telling me to get the liquid steriod(EVEN FOR EAR INFECTIONS) I left and started taking them to out family DR. I do believe in a steroid for a 1 time thing but not what you`re talking about! You won`t even recognize your own child if you do this!

Hi M. - I have an almost 2 yr old that was on Pulmicort for about 12 months. She did not really have any of the symptoms I read in some of the responses. It was just a pain to administer as a breathing treatment for 10 min every evening. I would strongly recommend seeing a Pediatric Pulmonologist if you can for a second opinion. Our peditrician tried to manage my daughter's asthma issues early on and we had several miserable days & nights for several months. I finally demanded to see a Peds Pulmonologist and what a world of difference. She is now on a medicine called QVar, which is easier to administer (no breathing treatments) and it seems to be working like a charm. We made it through this winter with very minor sickness compared to last winter. Good luck, it's scary when your little ones are sick.

Hi M.---So sorry to hear your little one's allergy problems. It's so hard to know what to do because with prescription drugs, what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another. What would concern me is that drugs tend to deal with symptoms of allergy problems when we should be concerned with the underlying immune system disfunction.

I am taking a class to be a certified wellness educator and I'm learning how diet affects disease and prevention of it. Allergies, and therefore asthma, are immune system disorders. I would be most happy to help you learn how to strenghten your child's immune system (and the rest of the family as well) so that drugs may not ever be needed again. Please feel free to call me at any time and we can talk about options.

Drugs should only have to be used as a last resort. My mission is to help people learn how to enable their own body to be able to protect and heal itself through whole food nutrition. I look forward to hearing from you. In health, D. ###-###-####

M. ~ We have been using this on our (almost) 2year old without issue since he was about 9 months old. We use it on an "as needed" basis. Here is a link to another post about Pulmicort with MANY responses including my own experience. Good luck to you and your family.

http://www.mamasource.com/request/12669032144601874433

~ V.

We use it with our 1 year old (got at about 6 months) and use as needed. I have not seen any of those side effects. It seems to be fairly effectife when we do use. We haven't had to use for any more than about 2 weeks continously.

J.

These horror stories are just unfounded in 'normal' children. There is an underlying issue or allergy that causes this type of reaction. In reality, the dose of steroids in Pulmicort is a fraction of the dose he would get in a prescribed liquid steroid, which is commonly prescribed. Both my youngest sons have asthma issues, the 4 year old has outgrown it, the 2 year old is still in the thick of it. We use pulmicort and xopenex on an as needed basis. You have to weigh the risk/benefit ratio. Sure, in a perfect situation you wouldn't want to give your son meds...but it sounds like you have to, as I do sometimes. Breathing isn't optional and you have to preserve lung function in these little guys so when they do (hopefully) outgrow this business, they don't have lasting issues. I applaud you for doing your research. We always have pulmicort on hand just in case, though, and it has been a life saver at times. As far as the expense, your insurance should cover it but don't be afraid to ask your doc for samples. We always have samples of hundreds of meds in our medical office. Take advantage of them!

~L.

M.,
Before trying this medication (or in conjunction with it, if your 6 year old needs immediate treatment), I would seriously consider looking into natural methods for helping asthma/allergies. I read a book called "Healing the New CHildhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies" by Dr. Kenneth Bock. It combines diet changes with nutritional supplements to help heal the children with these disorders (which are all tied to the immune system). Many traditional allergy tests (scratching the skin) don't find foods that we are intolerant to. We can have an intolerance to many foods that don't cause the typical allergic reaction but make it difficult on our bodies to function none-the-less. My nephew has followed this healing program (outlined in the book) for autism and he's made amazing strides. The doctor also provides case studies of helping kids with severe allergies and asthma, quite often without the aide of medications. Sadly, many pediatricians "poo poo" this method - which is totally beyond my realm of understanding when there are THOUSANDS of moms out there who have used it and it WORKS on many, many kids!!! There are many pediatricians out there starting to use it but the American Academy of Pediatrics has been hesitatant to even look at it (again, I completely DON'T understand that!)

I think it's great that you are researching this medication before blindly listening to the doctor. The doctors seem to have the best intentions at heart but often want to just throw medications to mask the symptoms rather than healing the underlying causes... It's the traditional method of healing in the US and hopefully they will start to turn around.

Anyway, I recommend, at the very least, researching this. Best of luck :)

My son has mild asthma, triggered by colds or respiratory infections only. He has been on pulmicort for 3 and 1/2 years now. I love that stuff! He does well normally with one treatment every other day. He initially was on one a day, but we weaned him down this past winter. He has been free of any asthma attacks, even now he has the repiratory flu and we just bumped up his pulmicort breathing treatments to twice a day and he is doing fine, no asthma attacks. He is a very small child, 3rd percentile in weight, and let me promise you, weight gain is no issue. No side effects whatsoever. No behavioral issues. In fact, I have never heard of those side effects you mention. The pamphlet actually lists growth stunting as a side effect, not weight gain. But again, my son is doing fine! My only forewarning, it is expensive! It comes in generic now (budesonide), but it is still almost $200.00 before insurance. If you have good prescription coverage it should be much cheaper though.
I highly recommend this medicine. It has changed our lives for the better! Good luck with your decision!

My 1 year old was on this for about 6 months and we didn't have any negative side effects (other than dealing with the actual nebulizer). The good news is that after having used this medication, we have never needed to have another breathing treatment since (no more wheezing). I'm sure that there are tons of stories - both positive and negative, as each child is different. If there is the possibility that it could help your son, I'd suggest just keeping a very watchful eye for the side effects that you've mentioned.