Dulera is about a thousand times better than Symbicort. Advair didn't control my asthma at all. I've tried I think about 7 or 8 drugs, mostly trying to get stabilized and Dulera is by far the best. Asthma is still pretty new to me so I keep hoping someone will develop "no-agitation-works-great-inhaler". (I developed asthma at 34 after catching whooping cough at work. I was allergic to the shots so didn't develop immunity. So I've had it 5 years now. The first year or two it was out of control completely but after I quit working in an extremely polluted area in very dirty, smoky homes and then moved out of my old home it got a lot better which let me go to steroid inhalers only when I am sick or wheezing. I just live with some low level of wheezing most of the time that doesn't bother me and my dr and I have just worked this out so it is ok.)

Oral steroids mean immediate hospitalization. I have avoided them so far and hopefully always will but I've had them once before I was diagnosed or even that symptomatic and they put me way over the edge even then. I've seen a pulmnologist who after talking to my amazing family dr on the phone for 30 minutes plus reading a 3 page letter my dr wrote about his years of working with me and that I'm incredibly compliant but am aware of things I can't do safely was committed also to treating me without triggering mania as well. I can probably go back to him if I have to although it would be expensive and hopefully this is just a few weeks until the thing I'm most allergic to dies off. But oral steroids are really just not an option unless it is an absolute emergency and I've made it out of the emergency room after writing on a paper towel "no oral/injected steroids unless no other option: severely bipolar" and waving it until someone read it. The treatment that would work best for me would be Xolair, because my asthma is allergic and this test they do to see if you qualify I had like twice the cells necessary to qualify but I can't have Xolair because you have to be able to use an epi-pen and I can't do that safely with my MAOI. It's fun.

I'll try the decaf coffee although I kind of hate the flavor after I stopped drinking the caffeinated kind. Until then, (I don't even own a coffee pot so will have to try this when I'm out tomorrow) I guess it's inhalers and nebulizers.

Fun stuff.....