Seretide Keeps Me Alive But At a Huge Cost

In recent months I have been on a real mission to heal myself. I have chronic conditions and I resent the fact that I am dependent on all my medication to keep me alive. I am extremely grateful it exists, but slightly resentful that I cannot live without them. Bittersweet!

The warmer season is now upon us here in the UK, and I always knew that my condition would worsen and it has. I have to use my steroid inhaler, Seretide, a lot more frequently. The air quality is not too great here. Pollen counts are up and this nearly always affects my breathing.

Using my steroid inhalers takes its toll on me: The side effects

Unfortunately, as an asthma patient, I can never totally rule out using steroids to help control the asthma. It works so brilliantly for me by the way, however, the side effects are terrible on my body.

I notice I experience sweating during the night (which causes my eczema to flare), my face swells up, and my eyes start to become irritable and sore. Getting up in the morning is a real effort when I use these inhalers.

My mood is affected!

I feel exhausted and my mood is noticeably altered. I feel low. For years I thought that this was just my makeup, but because I have successfully been able to lower my doses in recent times, and sometimes even been able to have breaks from having any at all, it is obvious to me how my body is affected by this medication once I need to take it more frequently.

Many might say this is the price I have to pay to be able to breathe normally. I have to suffer in other areas of my life. This is very true but it does not change the way I feel about the medication. It spurs me to look for solutions or different ways to manage my condition.

There must be other ways to manage my asthma!

There has to be more than one way to keep my asthma at bay. My diet is as clean as it can be and when I am in a fitter state I can do light exercises which all contribute to beneficially managing this condition.

I have always known that there is no cure for my asthma, and I am not looking for one. As I say, I am merely looking for additional ways/behaviors to help me better live with my chronic condition.

I am positive that there must be an answer to not relying so heavily on medications. I think asthma medicines are incredible, my criticism is not necessarily with the medications themselves but the fact that that is all there is.

I wrote in one previous article about going back in a time machine and changing the behaviors of both myself and my parents. I sincerely believe that if the root causes are established we can change our behaviors and while having these asthma medicines in the background, then we might be able to fight it off in a more naturalistic way. That is my hope anyway.