I didn’t like it at the start because it’s almost like just, I mean I think in everybody’s head theres a kind of a, don’t go there factor with taking steroids because it feels like you’re, you know, polluting your body in some way. But I guess over time, I’ve come to, well, when I had the serious asthma attacks and I had to take serious doses of steroids so I would have been taking prednisolone and I would have been very aware that the prednisolone affected the body. You could you could feel it working in your system. You can feel your hands. You can feel it in your joints. It’s like a slightly burning sensation in your joints and your hands, like a, and it’s not a pleasant sensation. So you know that your body is processing some serious intervention when you’re on, when you’re taking that medication but you need it because you’re, you need that intervention to help you move on and get through the asthma attack. So if you balance that against taking a very metered low dose preventative on a regular basis. Well, you quickly work out by a process of elimination, I’d rather take this very low preventative dose. Obviously, intellectually, you’d rather be taking nothing, yeah, but, you know, when it comes to needing to be able to breathe and feel confident about your ability to shift oxygen and get on with your day, then the lesser of the two evils. So I suppose you just, you get your head around that after a while and it doesn’t become such a demon but I think a lot of people initially, when they realise that they’re dealing with a steroid of one or other form, they just have a kind of like a garlic and crucifixes, you know, I’m not putting that in my body. So and I’ve heard a lot of people say that, particularly when their children are diagnosed, yeah.

Worried about giving their children steroids?

Worried about giving their children steroids and feeling somehow some sense of that its theres something failing.

That they haven’t been able to create a situation where their child didn’t, this didn’t have to happen. I think people, in that situation, need a lot of reassurance.

You know, that this is a very effective medication. On a scale of one to ten, the type of doses that are normally given out, as I understand it, are not going to have huge detrimental effects.

And, you know, if your airways aren’t open, you don’t have much quality of life. So you’ve got to do that.

But I don’t know. Maybe that’s just sort of me my age and stage and maybe young, younger people wouldn’t I don’t know maybe, younger people being diagnosed would just, you know, accept it and go with it and have a different attitude.

And have there been any specific side effects of the steroids?

Just that sensation of burning in the joints and the hands but that would be when you’re taking, you know, prednisolone as an intervention.

When you’re already

Really bad?

Really in need of that. Obviously, that’s for me, that’s a twice in a lifetime experience, yeah.

Have you ever had to take a course of steroid tablets at all?

Yes. I’ve noticed now that I tend to need to do that, even when I’m prescribed antibiotics I need to take prednisolone and I’m prescribed six tablets every morning with breakfast of 5mgs. So 30mgs of prednisolone for a period of at least a week along with antibiotics. Because antibiotics are normally for the sore throat I get and the chest infection, it’s the prednisolone, I need on top of the preventer which is an added dimension of strength and control than I need with the asthma.

Okay. And are they, do you notice the difference? Are they effective? How do they work for you?

I’ve noticed the difference that within a few days I notice a difference in the less coughing or more control. However else I notice an increased appetite factor which is really, really a difficulty. As you can tell I’m not exactly a slim person in the first place, and that’s very hard to control, not wanting to eat more, and that’s something that I find very hard. But, it’s the lesser of the two evils. It’s better to have the prednisolone to have greater control when it’s got to the stage of a chest infection than not to have it.

When I saw the asthma nurse she said, Oh it’s you know you’ve got a bit worse again. And they gave me a tablet as well then which is not a steroid, it damps down the immune system a bit so that you don’t react as much too allergic triggers. Because I already had hay fever and eczema she said, Well you’ve probably got some allergic component to your asthma so this one might work. Because she said, It, in some people it works really well and in some people it’s completely, it doesn’t do anything. So just kind of like fingers crossed will it work for me? But it was really, really good.

And so I still take all of those. So I have the, the three inhalers and the tablets [laughs]. But it does work so I don’t have to take very much else. And I don’t use my blue inhaler unless I’m ill. And it’s a bit of a pain taking them all but at least you don’t have to worry about anything. Yeah so that’s kind of where we are now.

So those tablets you take daily?

Yeah.

Right.

Yes they’re once, once a day. You take them at night.

And did you say they’re non steroid based?

Yeah they’re like a, an anti-allergy. They’re not antihistamines but they damp down a particular part of the immune system…

The treatments that I now use although over the years I’ve used different things, but I now use something called Nasonex which is intended to treat rhinitis which is something which often goes along with asthma. It’s a different condition. But I have that as well. So I use that just in the morning. And then I use something called a – well a brown inhaler if I’m allowed to use it is Symbicort, which is a combined preventer reliever. I use fairly high doses of that morning and evening. Four inhalations morning and four evening. The strength of that is 200/6. And then in the evening I use something called Singulair I think they’re sort of the drug on the leaflet is something called montelukast and its intended to help reduce the inflammation of the airways. So those are the things I used regularly.

I’ve had just about every different kind of asthma. I was very allergic as a child, then it became gradually more chronic over the years, but I’ve had brittle asthma at times, and I’ve now got chronic severe asthma.

Plus I have tablets as well. So I have theophylline tablets. I have two kinds of inhalers. So, and another tablet, Singulair, I take at night. So yes.

Are those the steroid tablets?

No the steroid tablets when, only if I get bad.

If you have an infection or something?

Yes, I’ve always got some, yes.

So what are those other tablets?

Well theophylline, theres a type of aminophylline used to be injected into the vein 50 years ago, they now have it in tablet form, and it was for a long time, the only real treatment for asthma. Theophylline, aminophylline and adrenaline. Adrenaline has become Ventolin inhaler in the new make up if you like, a form of, and theophylline are kind of the new injection of aminophylline. So it’s changed.

So, why do you take that in combination with the steroid inhalers as well?

Because the theophylline tablets actually open up the lungs, they are called Phyllocontin. They open up the airways, or help to open up the airways, and anything that can make you stop wheezing quite so much is a good thing.

Yes, I’ve heard that said before.

And the Singulair that I take came out as montelukast and that is an anti-allergy thing, because I’m still allergic to a lot of things.

It’s a routine.

I have what’s called a dosset box, it’s got, I do a week’s medication in it, and I’ve now managed to with a bit of manipulation and a bit of help from my consultant, weve got it now that I take medication three times a day, roughly; I take tablets three times a day, breakfast, lunch and bedtime, sorry breakfast, supper and bedtime, and then I’ve got my nebulisers are twice a day. So I try and leave the middle of the day as free as possible. I mean, I still have inhalers and things I can use and all if I need to in the day, but weve, weve, weve manage to, again, it’s part of his helping me become more normal, you know, having more of a life, is we get the tablets at various times of the day so the middle bit is free and but it’s a I can’t be spontaneous.

I can’t, you know, if someone says to me, Oh, were going out, oh, do you want to stay over? I can’t, I, because the med, the type of medication I take, I can’t miss a day. I mean, yeah, I do get sick of taking it, you know, after breakfast, ah, I’ll just take my medicine, I jokingly say it’s my second breakfast, you know, all the pills, takes, takes one and a half mugs of tea to take all my pills [laughs] in the mornings, you know.

Gosh.

And then I have the pills I take at suppertime and then I have the ones I have to take before I go to bed, you know, and then my nebuliser.

But things like my nebuliser, I have to buy myself. I’ve got two, I’ve got a portable one that I can carry around in my handbag and I’ve got my big one, compressor one upstairs, that I use at home. I had to buy it and pay for it myself.