Xopenex, Does anyone else use this? Options

[Caroline's mom]

My son seemed to do fine on his albuterol, but the dr. switched to xopenex and it doesnt seem to work as well on his asthma, not to mention that his heart rate goes up to 168 beats per minute and doesnt come down for hours. Different kids react to different meds I guess. I am sure I'm not the only one who wonders about the fact that the majority of the medical community is treating the symptom of asthma/allergies but haven't figured out what the cause of the symptom is. Has anyone ever heard of NAET.com? I just read some of their website today and am wondering if anyone else has heard of it or had any experience with it as relates to asthma and allergies.

Yes, different medications work for different people and Xopenex didn't work for our daugher at all. Our pediatrican placed my three old on Xopenex/Pulmicort nebulizer treatments in Feb. We were told to use it twice daily for 6 wks. We lasted about 4-5 days. I have NEVER seen a drug have such adverse reactions on a person. My daughter is a very good eater and we couldn't get her to eat anything and she really wasn't interested in drinking either. She actually went 12 hours one day without urinating. She also became aggressive, hitting me, her brother and cousins whenever things didn't go her way. Our cooperative and happy child became a ball of energy and nerves. One minute she would be running wild and the next she would be in tears. The worst part was bedtime. She would scream and have tantrums about going to bed and once she fell asleep she would jerk and twitch for hours. A couple of nights she woke after sleeping for about three hours and the aftermath was unbelievable. She would sit straight up and scream, sounding almost like a wild animal. Of course I would try to console her which only made her angrier. She would scream louder and then hit me and push me away. She seemed terrified of me and my husband. (Honestly, her head might as well have been spinning). I couldn't imagine what was going through her head. After about 4 nights we stopped the medication and slept peacefully. The next day, we tried the medications again and the episodes continued. I called the pediatrician and she didn't seem concerned at all. She said Xopenex didn't have side effects like albuterol and suggested that my daughter was having temper tantrums. I was furious and took my daughter to MY doctor. He beleived that we were correct and suggested that I try giving her the medications separately to see which was causing the problems. So, we gave her Pulmicort by itself one night and Xopenex the next night. One night she was aggressive, screaming, and out of her mind and the next she twitched, jerked and whimpered throughout the night. Needless to say, we stopped both medications and things returned to normal. She will NEVER take these medications again unless it is life-threatening and there are no other options and she will also not be returning to that particular pediatrician!