I am an asthmatic…I take albuterol–both inhaler (the new inhalers for me are barely resuce till I get to the nebulizer), Advair, Intal and wehn bad Dueneb. sometimes albuterol will make my bg go up–but am not sure if it is from the albuterol or low oxygen sat that makes it happpen. Intal will make it go up and dueneb will make it go up…as eveyone said YMMV…but not breathing well…is very hard on your heart and will make your bg go up all byu itself…so it is a matter of finder your right treatment.
How’s it going today? I hope that some of the bg swings you saw yesterday were due to the gastroparesis rather than the albuterol, but the things you’re describing are very similar to the problems I had with albuterol. You might want to ask about an inhaled steroid to help limit your use of the albuterol if it continues to impact your bgs that way.
Thanks Emily. I am going to call my PCP tomorrow and see if they will give me something else. I did read that swimming was a good exercise for people with asthma, but I was never a big swimmer. I also have transportation issues so getting someplace to do that regularly would not be possible for me.
Thanks Denise. I know not breathing right is not good either and I am sure explains why I have felt like crap lately. It seems to have gotten worse after I turned the AC off. Hopefully my PCP will give me something else to try until I can get in with a specialist.
I did not use it at all yesterday after my 2nd attempt on Friday The first BG spike was possible froim gastroparesis but I know the 2nd one wasn’t. After my BS came down from the first one, I hung out around 70 until I tried the albuterol the 2nd time. My heart is racing too fast for me to even want to use that stuff! I am not sure which was worse. I am going to call my PCP tomorrow and hopefully, they will call something else in try.
Albuterol is really an emergancy inhaler for quick relief from symptoms. It may be you would do better on a long acting inhaler like Advair, Symbicort, Flowvent or another which provides a lower dose. I find these work perfectly fine and only need the Albuterol for heavy physical activity. I can mow my yard and ride my bike at a comfortable pace without the Albuterol, but for an intense activity I do need the Albuterol.
Thanks Kiva. Hopefully my PCP won’t have a problem switching me. From what I am reading and what people are saying here, I am not sure why he gave that to me first.
sometimes they try albuterol first to calm things down and adjust from there
also–on complaining to my endo about not being able to judge how any of the asthma meds will effect my bg–he said the less that makes it through the ling barrieer the less effect it has
so when alb doesn’t make my bg go up I really need to move to duo neb…etc…
That is interesting to know so I will have to keep that in mind.
Touching back to this old thread to see whether there are others who require emergency inhalers. After a recent bout with an asthma attack on an airplane following a race from security to the gate, I think I shouldn’t ignore the flares of what seem to be exercise-induced asthma (and only when I’m going from 0-60 without any warmup).
If you do require inhalers for this purpose, are there any that you might recommend that won’t skyrocket bloodsugar?
I have asthma and take Symbicort twice daily and Ventolin on occasion. Without the Symbicort, I need Ventolin much more often. I don’t notice an effect on my blood sugar from either medication. But I also don’t have nearly as tight control as some here do. I do notice that an asthma attack can often cause my blood sugar to spike (I haven’t had a severe asthma attack requiring emergency medical care since about age eight). I figure the rise is from my body being stressed because I’m not able to breathe well. I personally feel like breathing trumps blood sugar in level of importance. So, if you need medication for asthma, I would take it even if it does have some negative impact on blood sugar. Taking it is better than not treating asthma and ending up in an emergency situation.
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I was just looking at some of the comments on this thread and there seems to be some confusion about what Albuterol actually is. It’s a beta2 agonist/bronchodilator, NOT an inhaled steroid. Anything that is strictly fast acting and as needed will not be a steroid because steroids take days-weeks to work. That being said, albuterol should not cause an issue with your blood sugars. I imagine the warning to diabetics has to do with the very common side-effect of shakiness that albuterol causes. The shakiness can feel much like that of a low blood sugar and therefore, people might mistreat or ignore signs of a low.
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Also, inhaled steroids go directly to the lungs and very little, if any will get to the bloodstream which is the beauty of them.