atomic sagebrush
November 5th, 2011, 10:42 AM
Sorry I know this is a long story but I think all this info is important and I seriously need help and advice!!! I'm losing my mind here.:drama:
I spent Thurs. night and all day Friday in the hospital with Marshall. He had brochiolitis and was turning blue from lack of oxygen so they were giving him breathing treatments. The first thing they gave him was albuterol which seemed to work the first time and then stopped working so they gave him epinephrine breathing treatments which did the trick and by Fri afternoon he was mostly back to normal again. Then they prescribed albuterol again (gave once in the hospital) and gave me this nebulizer to take home and give to him every 4-6 hours.
When we were in the hospital both my husband and I noticed that he did not seem to like the albuterol treatments. When he was given the epi treatments he just relaxed and would breathe it in but with the albuterol he fussed and tried to get away, and on the last treatment in the hospital I noticed he was grinding his teeth and licking his lips a lot in a weird way, to the point where I asked if it seemed normal, and the respiratory therapy lady said that it was because it gave him a dry mouth.
Anyway, I waited the full 6 hours before dosing him again because the albuterol makes him act like a crazy man and then gave it to him. He got fussy again but I stuck it out through the whole treatment at which time I noticed that the skin on his lips was pale, yellow in a couple of patches. It looked like blisters but it wasn't, the skin itself was a different color.
It did not seem to be an allergic reaction and he seemed fine after the treatment was done. It was more like the nebulizer itself was irritating his lips, inside his mouth seemed fine, no discoloration. But then again thinking back to the hospital, he did not like the albuterol at all and after the first time, it did not seem to help. In retrospect I wonder if it might have even made him worse because his oxygen levels dropped from 90-92 into the mid-80's after he was given the albutrol a couple of times. But allergy to albuterol is super rare, almost unheard of, the pharmacist told me, and seemed to think that it would have manifested itself while he was taking it in the hospital.
I called the pharmacy, the emergency room, etc. but none of them had ever heard of it and of course now it's the weekend so I can't follow up with our reg. doctor or our allergy doctor until Monday. The only thing that they told me to do was bring him back to the ER for evaluation, well I really didn't want to do that because he had been through so much already with poking and prodding and he seemed ok. So I decided to wait it out for a few more minutes because they didn't seem to know what was going on anyway. While I was on the phone (about 10 minutes) he played normally and the discoloration vanished.
I hit the Google Med School and found only one reference to skin discoloration, on an eHow page and I usu. don't take those too seriously as sources of info - it said to stop giving the medicine right away which of course I already did. But the hospital put this huge fear of relapse into me and now I'm scared that if I stop using the nebulizer for very long, he will get really sick again.
Anyway, so my question is, has anyone ever experienced this with an albuterol nebulizer?? If so, did they ever find out why? Did they tell you to keep using it??
He seems fine this morning (better than yesterday definitely) and so far I have not given him the nebulizer since 6 pm yesterday. But I am really worried about him relapsing. For right now my thinking is that I will just wait and then if he gets worse at any point I can use it then. I am supposed to follow up with my reg. doctor on Monday and obviously I will ask about it then. Does this seem like a crazy idea?? What would you guys do???
And one last q - what do you do with a REALLY expensive nebulizer that your kid is allergic to??:suprise: Is there any other medicine that they give kids via a nebulizer?? (they seemed to think he might develop asthma at some point because of this bronchiolitis and that he might need the nebulizer with every cold he gets for awhile and gave me a massive amount of albutrol because of this)
I spent Thurs. night and all day Friday in the hospital with Marshall. He had brochiolitis and was turning blue from lack of oxygen so they were giving him breathing treatments. The first thing they gave him was albuterol which seemed to work the first time and then stopped working so they gave him epinephrine breathing treatments which did the trick and by Fri afternoon he was mostly back to normal again. Then they prescribed albuterol again (gave once in the hospital) and gave me this nebulizer to take home and give to him every 4-6 hours.
When we were in the hospital both my husband and I noticed that he did not seem to like the albuterol treatments. When he was given the epi treatments he just relaxed and would breathe it in but with the albuterol he fussed and tried to get away, and on the last treatment in the hospital I noticed he was grinding his teeth and licking his lips a lot in a weird way, to the point where I asked if it seemed normal, and the respiratory therapy lady said that it was because it gave him a dry mouth.
Anyway, I waited the full 6 hours before dosing him again because the albuterol makes him act like a crazy man and then gave it to him. He got fussy again but I stuck it out through the whole treatment at which time I noticed that the skin on his lips was pale, yellow in a couple of patches. It looked like blisters but it wasn't, the skin itself was a different color.
It did not seem to be an allergic reaction and he seemed fine after the treatment was done. It was more like the nebulizer itself was irritating his lips, inside his mouth seemed fine, no discoloration. But then again thinking back to the hospital, he did not like the albuterol at all and after the first time, it did not seem to help. In retrospect I wonder if it might have even made him worse because his oxygen levels dropped from 90-92 into the mid-80's after he was given the albutrol a couple of times. But allergy to albuterol is super rare, almost unheard of, the pharmacist told me, and seemed to think that it would have manifested itself while he was taking it in the hospital.
I called the pharmacy, the emergency room, etc. but none of them had ever heard of it and of course now it's the weekend so I can't follow up with our reg. doctor or our allergy doctor until Monday. The only thing that they told me to do was bring him back to the ER for evaluation, well I really didn't want to do that because he had been through so much already with poking and prodding and he seemed ok. So I decided to wait it out for a few more minutes because they didn't seem to know what was going on anyway. While I was on the phone (about 10 minutes) he played normally and the discoloration vanished.
I hit the Google Med School and found only one reference to skin discoloration, on an eHow page and I usu. don't take those too seriously as sources of info - it said to stop giving the medicine right away which of course I already did. But the hospital put this huge fear of relapse into me and now I'm scared that if I stop using the nebulizer for very long, he will get really sick again.
Anyway, so my question is, has anyone ever experienced this with an albuterol nebulizer?? If so, did they ever find out why? Did they tell you to keep using it??
He seems fine this morning (better than yesterday definitely) and so far I have not given him the nebulizer since 6 pm yesterday. But I am really worried about him relapsing. For right now my thinking is that I will just wait and then if he gets worse at any point I can use it then. I am supposed to follow up with my reg. doctor on Monday and obviously I will ask about it then. Does this seem like a crazy idea?? What would you guys do???
And one last q - what do you do with a REALLY expensive nebulizer that your kid is allergic to??:suprise: Is there any other medicine that they give kids via a nebulizer?? (they seemed to think he might develop asthma at some point because of this bronchiolitis and that he might need the nebulizer with every cold he gets for awhile and gave me a massive amount of albutrol because of this)