has anyone heard of or been perscribed this drug? It suppose to combine dialotrs like what's in servent and steroid inhaler like flovent into one inhaler. Its brand new. I am going to ask my doctor about it.(One less inhaler to suck on)

My doc recently switched me from Flovent to Advair and I like Advair better. Keeps me from coughing and wheezing as much.

I wish I could take it. My doc said because I take 4 puffs of flovent in my dosage they don't make advair that strong. It can only work for people who take 2 puffs at a time of flovent(or other steroid inhaler)

I can't use Advair because the grain size of the powder is too heavy, and my airways are so sensitive, that I just cough it all right back up into my throat and mouth. Azmacort is not as strong, but is the only steroid inhaler I can take that doesn't make me cough and doesn't irritate my airways.

Caring

Originally posted by rosalita100us:
I wish I could take it. My doc said because I take 4 puffs of flovent in my dosage they don't make advair that strong. It can only work for people who take 2 puffs at a time of flovent(or other steroid inhaler)

i have been taking 2puff 2x of serevent and 2puffs 3x a day of flovent (220mg) my pulmonologist just switched me to advair. He said that with the amount of stuff I was on it was a good switch because the dosage was about the same and with advair you only have to use it 1 puff(inhale..whatever) 2x a day. I'm on prednisone right now and the doc told me to wait until a couple days into the prednisone to do the switch to advair so I'll let you know how the switch goes. I hope it works! That's 8 less puffs a day!!!

that's weird your taking 6 puffs a day of flovent I am taking 8 and I can't take it, I wish I could like you do

i'd ask your doc about it and just see if you can do the advair and then do the 2 extra puffs on the flovent. I would personally feel like it was worth it. That many puffs takes so much time and I have a hard time keeping track of how many I've done alot of times and plus after so many puffs my throat can't take it anymore and I cough so I wonder how effective it is. I start the advair tmr. I hope it works!!

you could always just do both -- if it's the format of the diskus inhaler that you like, flovent and serevent (the ingredients in the advair inhaler) are both available on diskus, and if it's the drug combo you like you'd get just as much benefit from taking them in two seperate inhalations. Take your serevent first -- it'll open up your breathing tubes so the flovent gets in further.

Advair really is nothing more than a combination of two drugs on a new fancy type inhaler. If you're taking these same drugs but taking them seperately, my impression is that you're not missing out on anything.

just an update...the advair is great!! I'm on prednisone right now so it's hard to tell if the advair is going to work as well as when I was on all the puffs of serevent and flovent but I'm hoping. It is SO nice to just take 1 puff twice a day. I don't cough when I take it and it's so much less time consuming.

While Advair is a combination of Flovent and Serevent, it is NOT the same thing. Flovent and Serevent are aerosol, and Advair is a very, very fine powder. The aerosol droplets in Flovent and Serevent, while small, are still too large for the lung tissues to absorb easily, and you end up coughing a lot of it back up. I was on Flovent and Serevent long-term, and wasn't getting any better. I jumped to Advair (had a really hard time getting insurance to cover it, but they finally did) and I noticed an immediate improvement. No more waking up in the middle of the night unable to breathe. Sometimes going for days at a time without having to use my rescue inhaler. Advair is a miracle, at least for me!

Mary

I tried advair right after it came out.Unfortunately I can't take that dose of serevent,so after a short time on it I was back on flovent MDI.Which for me used with a spacer works well.I can however take 1x1 of the serevent MDI.

I started using Advair 3 weeks ago. For me its a miracle drug. No side effects, no breathing problems!!! I was taking Flovent 220mcg 2 puffs 3X's per day, Singulair, and still had to use Albuterol 1 to 4 times per day. For the first time in 12 years I feel like I don't have Asthma, its a wonderfull feeling. I have only had to use my Albuterol once in the past 3 weeks. I'm sure that the main thing that has helped me the most is the Servent, I had not tried it before, I wish I had long ago. Advair works, at least for me.

<quote>While Advair is a combination of Flovent and Serevent, it is NOT the same thing. Flovent and Serevent are aerosol, and Advair is a very, very fine powder.</quote>

Actually what I was getting at was more that Advair's fine powder form is marketed as a device called "Diskus". This is analogous to perhaps the Rotahaler, the Turbuhaler, or the Diskhaler. They're just brand-names for dry powder-inhalers.

I understand that Serevent and Flovent are available in aerosol forms, and recently Glaxo has realized that aerosol forms are not proper for everyone, and has thus marketed the same drug in different forms. For instance, while Serevent *is* available as a puffer most commonly, you can also get it as a diskhaler (four blisters per disk) and as a Diskus (Which is the same format as the Advair.)

Flovent works the same way -- four strengths of Diskus inhaler. The colors are even the same, except how with the different strengths of flovent puffer the colors changed slightly (light pink to orange to brown color schemes) the Diskus stays the same color, a reddish and an orange, for every different strength.

Advair is available with a standardized dose of Serevent in every strength made available in Flovent. If that sentence didn't make sense, let me rephrase. This means, that if you (for example) take 250 ug of Flovent in the morning, you can find an advair diskus that contains that exact same amount of fluticasone, as well as the same amount of salmeterol contained in one actuation of the serevent inhaler.

Where this becomes a problem is perhaps for people who are on such doses of Flovent where it is difficult to co-ordinate dosages with Advair, as with Advair, if you take an extra puff, you're not only doubling the dosage of Flovent, you're doubling the dosage of Serevent as well. This can be an inconvenience if you self-manage your doses and adjust as needed. (I remember people used to do that with the beclovent and switch to becloforte during a flare up -- is this done with flovent and pulmicort still today?)

[This message has been edited by wrin (edited 11-10-2001).]