Do any of your little one's take Pulmicort as a preventative med? How long does it take to start working?

Catherine uses Pulmicort via nebulizer. I can't really say how long it takes to start working because she was sick when she started using it, and her symptoms improved after several days, but she was also on albuterol and some antibiotic at the time.

Hi Lesley how long has Catherine been taking Pulmicort? Does she take it everyday? Connor's Dr. wants him to start taking it once a day as a preventative med. He also takes Xopenex as needed. I have been very hesitant to give him the daily preventative treatments but the Dr. said if he got sick again we would have to.(well I'm pretty sure he's getting sick he has been coughing and gagging all day) Have you ever noticed any side effects? Sorry for all of the ?? I just hate having him on all of these meds!

We don't use it daily, although you should to get the most benefit out of it. We use it as needed with the albuterol (similar to xopenex) at the first sign of congestion or snottiness. Twice a day until the respiratory symptoms clear up.

Do you think it would work if we did it that way? I would feel so much more comfortable only using as needed!!!

Okay, I am on Pulmicort myself for chronic asthma. This is what the doctor told me... it takes 2-3 weeks for the drugs to start having the "preventative" effect it is meant to have. I definitely have great symptom control when I take this regularly. When I don't (which is once in a blue moon) it is noticeabel in about 10 days that my symptoms are worsening. Definitely use it all the time, otherwise you're wasting your time really. Pulmicort is a preventative, so needs to be used all the time, regularly. It is not an inhaler to be used as needed... for those times, you should be having something like ventolin, bricanyl etc..

Sarah is right, if you are not going to take a preventative every day then you might as well not take it as it will have no effect whatsoever. Preventative meds do just that it Prevent asthma.

Parker is on Flixotide, a preventor, and he saw results in about 3 days (but the dr started him on a real high dose and we are decreasing it to find the right dose) so far no side effects

I took pulmcourt for asthma when pregnant with my first child, he is as healthy as a horse- maybe I should have used it when pregnant with Parker?

Pulmicort is totally safe to be used in pregnancy and also for young children. It is a steriod- based med and so some people are concerned about that aspect. It doesn't appear to have any long-term affects though... I've been using mine for about 15 years and so far, so good. Well, it's either that or a life/death situation.. and I know I choose meds over that any day!!
You need to make sure you rinse his mouth out after taking it too....
Pulmicort will not help you when you're in an acute asthma attack... you must take it regularly. Hope that helps!

Sam was on it 2x a day - 3x when he would get sick. We also used xoponex as well when he was ill. We took him off the pulmicort on our own as we found out his respiratory problems were due to aspiration. We still use it when he gets a respiratory infection or when he gets a runny nose.