Treatment for coughing and vomiting due to asthma despite nebulization?

Posted on Mon, 17 Mar 2014

Question: I am a 31 year old single female with history of asthma since early childhood. I was maintained on seretide diskus with ventolin inhaler plus singulair tabs. I was doing fairly well since this winter started but 2 weeks ago I developed a higg fever and was diagnosed with bronchitis. I was started on zithromax and finiahed a course of 3 days but symptoms of cough and wheezing continued so I was given prednisone 40mg twice a day for 5 days which also didnt work. i was then hospitalized for 2 days for IVFluids and antiemetic. am out since 1 day but still severely coughing and vomiting from the rrpeated coughing. i had 2 episodes yesterday where i was basically gasping for air with very harsh noise during inspiration lasting for about 3 sec each. am also on home nebulization but dont feel any better

Answered by Dr. Gyanshankar Mishra (12 hours later)

Brief Answer: Seem to be in acute severe asthma. Detailed Answer: Hi, Thanks for posting the query on HCM. After going through your query, I would like to comment the following: 1. You seem to be currently in Acute severe asthma. 2. You need to get yourself immediately evaluated by a Pulmonologist. Probably hospitalisation will be required since you currently have symptoms of respiratory infection along with uncontrolled bronchospasm. 3. Investigations required: sputum examination, chest xray, blood counts, pefr monitoring and oxygen saturation. 4. Treatment required : injectable antibiotics, bronchodilators, nebulisation half hourly till control of bronchospasm. Also oxygen administration may be required. Thus get yourself evaluated by a pulmonologist at the earliest. I hope I have answered your query. I will be glad to answer follow up queries if any. Please accept my answer if you have no follow up queries. Regards Dr. Gyanshankar Mishra MBBS MD DNB Consultant Pulmonologist

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar