anyone gained alot of weight from taking advair?

[wifeuvbpd87]

Hi,
This is my 1st time to this bored..Ive honestly havent been able to find a asthma bored..this is refreshing..
Im 34 years old and homeschool my 3 kids..THAT in itself is a asthma trigger...lol..I have alot of stress including having a prescription addict husband..no fun..So I know that stress is a biggie for me..I have had asthma for 32 years..Ive sucked down albuterol inhalers in a 2 week period for years..Ive just now have been referred to an pulmonologist who has put me on advair..While it was a DREAM for 2 months..I mean i went from using an inhaler every 2 weeks and sleeping with it in my pillow to taking a couple puffs a month..But lately I have gone back to using albuterol alot more especially at night..Im still taking the advair but its lost its flavor..the weight gain is a drag too..
Well i knowIm rambling..but has anyone else ever had this problem and what did u do? Ive tried singulair and alot of the others..So do i need to plan my will?
denise

[Brwneyedgirl]

I don't know what ot say to you. Recently, my pulmonologist put me on Advair. I have been trying to figure out why I was gaining so much weight to the point that my clothes were getting tight. You are correct that it does wonders, but it is glad to know that I am not alone in the weight gain area. Sorry I couldn't be of much help to you, but I wanted to let you know that I understand what you are going through.

[lupine]

The reason you gain weight from advair is because its a steroid, like prednisone, steroids put the weight on, but open those air passages. Lupine

[peace1]

Finally I have some people who agree with me about advair. I gained 10lbs rather quickly and looked on healthboards for someone to agree with me.Did not have much luck. Most people said it was because I did not exercise etc.Not only did I gain weight,I woke up every nite with leg cramps, and was always bloated,fingers, feet etc.I finally got off the drug for the most part. Only use it when I am having alot of trouble. Now I am on singulair, it does not work nearly as good but I cannot just keep gaining weight, I am already obese. Also heard of someones child who was on advair, under age 12 and ended up with nerve damage to the point of living in a wheel chair for months. The side effets are not well known, unfortunately the doctors are also unaware of these side effects on such a new drug. I reccomend getting off advair if you can handle it. Good luck!!

[wrin]

This "new drug" is actually two older drugs that have been extensively tested and used for the last 10 years.

Advair is a combination of two drugs -- Flovent, a corticosteroid brought in to replace the more dangerous Beclovent (beclomethasone), in March 1996.

Serevent, the other component of this "new drug", has been around since February 7th, 1994.

As far as weight gain goes, whenever one is taking any kind of corticosteroid, weight gain is always listed as a side-effect. I hope Singulair is working better for you, and if you're only using Advair when you're having a bad time you should consider switching to straight Serevent as this would eliminate the corticosteroid component altogether.

I am greatly amused by those saying that the side-effects are not well known -- there were several 12-week trials done way before either drug was approved by the FDA, and since then there have been no reports of any kind of neurological damage occurring, at least not reports to reputable sources. If your friend's child was neurologically damaged by advair, I see you live in the states, I'm sure it wouldn't be out of the question for her to sue.

I don't recommend getting off inhaled corticosteroids if you can handle it, simply because the alternatives to them are no prettier, in fact, they are worse.

We'll start with the magic that is Singulair, because it's more well-known. It doesn't work for everyone because it relies on one particular component to counter the inflammation. Corticosteroids are a sort of broad-spectrum anti-inflammatory -- they work by countering the inflammatory process.

The next alternative would be an oral corticosteroid, in a dose something along the line of ... 1,000 times the size of a dose of Flovent, ... and that's the low estimate. Anybody who's ever been on prednisone will tell you that if you can avoid that altogether, you should, simply because the side-effects range from the ugly to the uncomfortable to the horrific. (My grandmother went blind from the neuropathy it can sometimes cause.)

Our next option for a maintenance medication would be a drug that's been mostly dropped by the wayside for the last 20 years -- Theophyllines. They're potent bronchodilators, taken as pills. Their range of effect is also incredibly close to their range of overdose -- and their overdose is a dangerous one. It is for this reason that people taking theophyllines are to go for blood testing every 1 to 3 months to make sure the serum levels in their blood are okay. Many people have died simply from taking doses of theophyllines too close together.

If you have problems in particular with GlaxoWellcome or the combination drug Advair, I would personally point out that Advair isn't really recommended for children under the age of 12, as Serevent doesn't exactly come in tailored dose-sizes. If you are looking for an alternative to Advair, AstraZeneca makes a combination drug called Symbicort, which contains Pulmicort (the only inhaled corticosteroid approved for children under 3) and Oxeze, which is a drug much like Serevent except faster-acting (think 15 minutes) and also coming in a half-dose size.

I've had a lot of luck with it. I suggest you try it.