Little Miss WRX

Having registered at a local medical centre, I am pretty amazed at the attitude of a couple of the doctors there.

I am being more or less forced to take an asthma drug that is not as effective as my last and I am not being given the option to try any alternatives, despite me suggesting some which I have taken before when my asthma was really bad.

I had to literally make the doctor check my peak flow with a relevant meter, so I could prove that I was struggling with my asthma and listen to my airways so he could hear the wheeze. Not that it wasn't loud enough anyway.

He then just told me to take my Ventolin more, when I asked him if 8 or so times a day was okay at the moment, he just shrugged.

I had to ask several times for the steroid tablets as I know how unpredictable my asthma can be. Eventually when he did give me a prescription for them, he didn't bother to ask if I had been on them before.

This pretty much worried me.....being in a foreign country with a doctor who doesn't seem to give a damn, asthma that is slowly worsening, with the safety of the treatment I know that works and the family GP who knows my asthma trends back in the UK.

Fortunately my mum is bringing more of the "obsolete" Becloforte over to me when she arrives in a few days, but if I intend to live over here, I need to find something and fast.

Dark Muppet

.

[Edited by Neil Smalley - 3/14/2003 9:49:38 AM]

druddle

I have the same concerns Michelle being diabetic. But its not like theres non in Oz so they must know what they are doing...

Neil Smalley

What are the regulations regarding prescription medicines there. Can you request a certain brand or is it down to what that particular surgery 'stocks'.

The only real alternative you have is to move Doctors.

Little Miss WRX

Apparently, Becloforte and Becotide have been made obselete, so people are being made to change to Flixotide.
I wasn't overly impressed with Flixotide and found I had to take more and more with supporting inhalers in order to get to the same level of wellbeing with Becloforte.

Someone has recommended an asthma specialist which I may be trying tonight.

Druddle....that's what I thought, hopefully this one who is recommended will know what to do.
I am sure that they will take diabetes a lot more seriously, I will do some research for you and find out about any specialist clinics you can register at if you want?

The first bit of advice I will hand to you is get private medical insurance as soon as you arrive!!!!

druddle

If you could Chelle that would be fan dabby dozy.

Dave

Little Miss WRX

Not a problem at all.

brendy

Interesting as a mere A&E doctor I did'nt know becloforte was obsolete - used it yesterday in fact and hav'nt read anything about it being withdrawn.
Point on the steroids though - only use when you need them , young women and osteoporosis bad mix.

Little Miss WRX

This is in Australia BTW...........

It is available in the UK and is still on prescription in Australia, but for no Australian chemists have stocks of it anymore. I now have a prescription for Becloforte, but nowhere to get it from!

Something to do with the patent running out on it? Flixotide and the misture of Flixotide and Serevent (called Seretide) is being pushed to replace it.

Little Miss WRX

The reason I pushed for the predniselone was because he won't look into any other alternatives to Flixotide....like Pulmicort, that was pretty effective for me and I owuld be happy with that as an alternative.

I don't particularly want to wait till my asthma is bad enough for hospital admittance before one of the medical staff decides that my course of treatment isn't working and they will finally bother ot do something about it.

AndrewP

If the patents run out then the formula should be available as a generic so anyone can produce/market it - Becloforte is just Beclomethasone IIRC. Assuming that is that the same rules apply where you are, I would hope though that your Doc or Pharmacist should know this though.
Seriously - look after yourself and go see someone who knows their stuff, a respiratory physician in the first case who may be able to recommend a GP who's interested in Asthma. 8 times a day is definitely too often to be taking Salbutamol, it proves your preventer isn't working effectively. If your still stuck let me know and I'll speak to a respiratory guy on Monday.

A

brett555

aaaa.... i see there is another diabetic on SN ... hello there
Little Miss , hope this gets sorted , i would have thought medical care would have been good over there. My GF is planning on coming over in the next few weeks for a couple of months and i think i maybe coming over aswell for a bit ...

brett

ChristianR

iTrader: (1)

Well downunder is full of criminals, no doubt his documents are forged, and he is laundering money through the practice!!!!

On a more serious note, can you not order the required drugs over the internet? since you seem to know which ones work for you.

Little Miss WRX

Andrew, you would have thought that there would be alternative options. I know that the last time I ordered an - as you correctly say - Beclomethasone inhaler on prescription in the UK, it wasn't an Allen & Hanbury's (sp?) Becloforte named inhaler which I am used to, but merely an "own brand" almost brown inhaler with the relevant drug doses in it.

Maybe all of the pharmacies are tied to Allen & Hanbury's because all of the salbutamol inhalers I have got since arriving in Aus have been Ventolin brand.

The position where I was at in the UK with regards to my regular GP was that he basically let me get on with my own treatment and over the years, I had gone from an overall of seven inhalers when I first got diagnosed, down to three.....that's over approximately 10 years.

I know more or less when my asthma is troublesome but not urgent and when it is troublesome and I need help. I know that 8 or more puffs on the blue inhaler is too much and the lack of trust I have in the medical experience of Aus that I have so far is worrying me, which is obviously not helping my asthma.

My old doc alway advised me that if I was feeling really bad and my peak flow dropped swiftly under 150 (normally 550 - but averaging 250 atm ) and I wasn't able to get help, then I could basically unload my Ventolin inhaler slowly into my spacer device which would give me a dose equivelant to that of a child nebuliser. In the meantime, I was to organise getting myself straight to an A&E.
Not too sure how you docs on here would view that advice, but it worked out for me a couple of times when I needed it.

I have an appointment with an asthma specialist on Tuesday, next week. It is the earliest I could book from Friday. Hopefully, I can start to make some kind of progress.

Thanks for your offer of help and advice Andrew.

Brett, where are you intending to fly to?

Jason, thank you very much for the link, but unfortunately, they won't ship to Australia due to customs issues. Typical eh?

LOL@Christian. I am going to check other sites, but if one won't ship due to customs issues, I can't see many more having any more luck.

Sorry for the long post. Thanks for the help so far guys.

[Edited by Little Miss WRX - 3/15/2003 1:01:41 PM]

Mr.Manchester

I hate doctors at the moment, for one very good reason.

My grandad got taken into hospital in october last year with chest pains, he came out of hospital 2 weeks later with a new handfull of tablets.

one of the tablets was called Methotrexate, it was a new drug in the shape of a heart, and in the box for the tablets was a note saying patients to this drug should be closely monitored, so he did as prescribed and took them once a week.

on january the 7th he was re-admitted to hospital then later moved to intensive care where he died on the 2nd of february and we buried him on the day of his FIRST checkup.

hes appointment for the checkup was 14 WEEKS from the start of the course of tablets.

in my opinion, some doctors are stupid ******* that are in it for the wages and some actually care.

Scooby_Maxus

FYI in the UK, pharmacists are oblidged to supply the stated medication detailed on the prescription. If this is a branded drug then thats what they must supply. If the GP details a generic product, the pharmacist can supply either generic or branded. Not sure what the rules are for Aus.

Deep Singh

Mr Manchester my sincere sympathies on your loss.I must say though that I find your comments a little unfair.Methotrexate is an 'antimetabolite',its major application is as an anti cancer drug.It is NOT a cardiac(chest pain) treatment.The product information sheet that came with the drug would have given information to indicate how the side effects would manifest so your grandad could present to hospital should he suffer them.
Did your grandad have cancer? Do you know? Were any doctors negligent in their treatment/diagnoses of your grandad? You d'ont mention any of these things.You link two events ie a drug(which you have no idea why was started) being administered and a death and conclude that 'alot of doctors are stupid *******'.
As for the 'alot of them are in it for the wages',have you even a vague idea of what a doctor earns? If not then how can you make such a comment?
Once again I am very sorry for your loss but am dumbfounded by the way you have put two and two together and made five.

Deep.

Scooby Dooby Blue

LMW

Have you tried this breathingexercise technique that is becoming widely realised as an asthma aide?
People worldwide are subscribing to it (I believe it involved holding your breath and walking round in circles etc.), and within weeks are pretty much inhaler free!
Off the top of my head, I can't remember what it's called but I have a friend that's delighted with her results since beginning these exercises and I could find out more should you wish to pursue it.

Paul

PS I know it's not a resolve for your Oz problems, good luck getting it sorted.

TurboKitty

There's also a technique called active breathing which can be very helpful.

Little Miss WRX

Jason, many thanks.

I am hoping that I can sort something out for my asthma.

I was determined not to let it affect my matches this weekend, but I realise that I do need this sorting asap.

When I woke up, this morning, I had a slightly audible wheeze and took my usual dosage including a couple of puffs of Ventolin.
I arrived at the pitch and I used the spacer device to take four more puffs of my Ventolin. This did not work, even after 20 minutes, so I took four more. This then seemed to ease the wheezing, but not comfortably. Before the match, I took a couple more and felt confident to cope.
During the match I had to rely on my Ventolin a couple of times, but being an under 10's footie match I was refereeing, I didn't have to do much running. Fortunately, one of the teams was walking all over the other so I more or less stayed up one end of the pitch.
At half time I took some more and after match I had some more.

Overall, I managed to drag my peak flow up (after all of that Ventolin) to an amazing 300 and even though I am on oral steroids (6 a day) in addition to regular treatment, I am still taking increasing amounts of my ventolin whether active or not.
It seems a real effort to cough up any mucus that is being formed as a result of my asthma, so I am assuming, that is a sure sign that the Flixotide is not effective on me.

I am pretty glad that my mum is arriving next week with some supplies, but my repeat prescription only allows for two inhalers and my GP was pretty confident that there would be no supply issues and that I should be able to get the same inhalers over here.

I think I am just going to ship my UK GP along with adequate supplies of Becloforte in hi possession (I presume it would be acceptable for a medical practitioner to have that kind of medication on him/her) out here.

[Edited by Little Miss WRX - 3/16/2003 1:58:53 PM]

Tino

Just a thought but in the UK if your not happy with the result from doctor you can insist on seeing a specialist.Is it the same in Oz?
Worth a try.

Little Miss WRX

I have an appointment with a specialist on Tuesday.

He comes from a recommendation of a friend who has a friend with more volatile asthma than mine. This friend is able to more or less live a normal life through the treatment program this specialist put him on, so hopefully I should be a fairly easy patient.

In fact, all I want is BECLOFORTE!!!! then I could carry on as usual!!!!
It just goes to show how much the Becloforte was working with me! I had forgotten how irritating asthma can be.

Little Miss WRX

With regards ot the breathing technique....I suspect that this is the one......http://www.pe2000.com/buteyko.htm
Media info.....http://www.buteykosg.com/buteykopress.htm
Here is one medical review on it......http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/...er/bowler.html

[Edited by Little Miss WRX - 3/16/2003 2:34:55 PM]

Tino

Hope it all goes well on Tuesday
TTFN

Little Miss WRX

Me too, thanks.

Little Miss WRX

At long last!!!! Someone who knows what they are doing!!!

Albeit you have to pay for the privilege of seeing the specialist, nevertheless at least he listened to me!!!!

He took my history and assessed my asthma, took me straight into the treatment room and gave me a nebuliser to stabilise me and has now put me onto a properly controlled course of steroid tablets.
He was able to prescribe me another brand of Beclomethasone inhaler and was as disappointed as I was about the way I was treated with the other doctors.

He was pretty confident that I could manage my own asthma but knew that I needed some help immediately due to the unhelpfulness of the other doctors.
Mainly for his piece of mind we are both working on an asthma management program, blah, blah , but it is basically the same as I had in the UK. He did warn me that this time of year was pretty bad for asthmatics and has given me his contact numbers should I need him in an emergency.

Overall I have lots of confidence in this guy and am happy to go see him for my asthma treatment.

Druddle, I can certainly recommend this practice to you, they have a full treatment room set up for any emergency they may encounter. The only thing they haven't got is a full size hospital and ICU!!!

Luke

"next please..." Doctors.... like Firemen.