Is anyone else confused about all those inhalers?

Has anyone been prescribed Wixela? Im not sure it helps me…

You have Spiriva (tiotropium bromide) listed as a short-acting muscarinic agent as well as a long-acting one. It is ONLY a long-acting one. Otherwise, you have summarized it nicely.
A handy reference is free downloadable COPD Pocket Guide from COPD Foundation that is available for both android and iPhone. It has a section for patients and another for providers and does list all the current medications available for COPD, both the generic and brand names. It has a lot of other helpful information, even videos on how to use the different medications and inhalers (so many different ones).
It is useful to review your medications with your provider and/or pharmacy periodically (at least annually), to be sure you aren’t having medications that duplicate or conflict with one another. My kids (who have asthma) have accidentally been told by the student health center to add a rescue inhaler when they already have one and it was the same medicine with a different brand names. Fortunately, they politely called me to double-check and declined to fill the prescription for a duplicate medication.

thank you for the very useful information
is anybody using Aerosphere inhaler?
(breztri)
appreciate info on that one

That is interesting about your asthma diagnosis. You may be correct. My husband was treated for asthma for years and was then discovered to have sarcoidosis! ( biopsy at a Boston hospital). He also has bronchiectasis and takes azithromycin three times weekly as a preventative measure. Good luck. Irene5

Interesting, I have been on trelegy for years and I use a rescue inhaler and nebs as needed. My original diagnosis was asthma, but I never wheeze. Then a few years ago I found out I had bronchiectasis. It makes me wonder if I really have asthma. I have periods of severe shortness of breath and a croupy kind of cough a few times a year. Every time that happens, I am put on prednisone, And it works, but I know what it's doing to my body. it gets so very confusing. Just recently I had a possible diagnosis of abscessus, but I am not symptomatic.
I rarely if ever can cough up any mucus. I am being fitted for Smart Vest next week. Some days I feel like damned if you do damned if you don't.

We just had the discussion last week with friends and family about people being sent home with new meds and nobody doing a medication reconciliation after hospitalization.
Your pulmonologist is a good place to start. You might need to follow up with a full medication reconciliation by a pharmacist who specializes in doing that - either your clinic or insurance company can help you.

Thank you! I've actually lined up all of my inhalers, pills, nebulizer solutions, etc - then defined each one. To top that, I spent 21 days in 2 different hospitals in less than 3 months, with different meds. What a mess.

Your chart has helped me so much. Now I have a few questions for my current pulmonologist (all good).

Thanks Again!

My ID Dr prescribed an Albuterol inhaler to use just prior to nebulizing Arikayce. My Pulmonologist prescribed Anoro to use instead. The Anoro has a drying effect so I am using the Albuterol

I used to take Flovent (fluticasone), and now I take a symbicort (budesonide). There likely are other products combined inhaler medications that contain fluticasone if that works best for you. According to the literature Budesonide causes fewer infections and then fluticasone. Fluticasone worked really well for my asthma for a long time but I did not like the side effects.

Throat and mouth swelling, skin peeling off inside mouth.