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I am a severe allergic asthmatic. My doctors call it atopic asthma. When I was in my twenties my childhood asthma went into remission as did most of my childhood allergies. I became able to tolerate most household pets including cats. I realy thougth I was over my allergies. I went on to train to be a pharmacologist and work with small animals. I have been doing it for twenty years. Four years ago, when my mom died my family started cleaning out her house that had been vacant for six months as she has hospitalized, it came back. Now I am almost crippled by it. I can't ride my bike, I can't do my gardening, and it takes all my strength to do my job everyday, all of which are my passions in life.

In the past year I have had asthma attacks so severe that I have lost consciousness. And in this time the one thing that worked for me was the old fashioned CFC powered albuterol inhaler. The liquid albuterol solution in the pump diven nebulizer also works but I can only tolerate that at night. Proventil is crap. And in fact every other HFA mediated inhaler has also proved to be insufficient in the long term. Advair was also designed to replace a CFC delivered steroid and long term beta 2 agonist (a bronchial dialator) therapy but in formulation the only beta 2 agonist that remained stable in a solid delivery format was only a partial agonist that has adverse effects on realy severe cases like mine. In addition Advair and Asthminex in their dry powder form often are irritants and patients tend to cough them up right after inhaling them. Don't get me wrong the do work for some people but for me they failed. I have had some success with Symbicort, the new HFA delivered steroid/beta 2 agonist from AstraZeneca but in this high pollen climate in PA its effects are waning. I am under the care of the premier asthma guy on the east coast who happen to be at U Penn in Philly. He has done wonders with me. But the end game may be in the immunotherapy of Xolair injections. This is a very costly neutralizing antibody therapy bu I am told if it work it is life changing. But doctor are reluctant to give it as it requires strict patient compliance for to showing up for therapy. This stuff is very expensive and if not delivered during the time its has been made into its injectable form, it goes bad; costing the clinic $1500. And even on this the FDA has a “black box” warning because it a biologic and hence has a risk of anaphylaxis. This is absurd as in an anaphylactic response the very reponse protein this stuff takes out must by induced for a severe allergic reaction

This is just a taste of what we are in for if we get government health care. The other bureaucracies will wave sway on medical protocols, therapeutic packaging (right down to the composition of saline bags, syringes and medical therapy formulation). If you think its bad not wait til any of these three chuckleheads running for president get it. Rush is right, we are screwed.

Let me have my old inhaler back so I can resume my life