Getting the Most from Your Inhaler…

Dear Editor,

I recently went to a breathing class at Bonner General Hospital, and did I have a rude awakening. I’ve been using Albuterol inhalers for many years, the kind where I shake the small bottle and then insert it into an “L” shaped plastic dispenser and take a quick puff of the medication to alleviate shortness of breath in a quick-acting manner.  Problem being, after all these years of using this inhaler I’ve found out I‘ve only been getting 50 percent or less of the medication into my system. The reason? There’s another component that should be used with the inhaler. It’s called a “spacer.”

The spacer is a cylindrical plastic device that is shaped like an empty toilet paper tube. I learned that instead of getting a quick fraction of a second puff of medication into my mouth, as was done all these past years with the inhaler, with the spacer I slowly inhale (over a period of 3 to 6 seconds) so I get the most medication/relief down as far into my lungs as possible. The spacer makes a whistling sound if I try to inhale the air-medication into my lungs too quickly, telling me to slow down my inhaling. By incorporating the spacer with the inhaler I find I don’t need to use the inhaler nearly as often.

Question for the medical community: “Why isn’t the spacer automatically supplied with the inhaler?”

Michael Harmelin
Vietnam veteran
Sandpoint

While we have you ...

... if you appreciate that access to the news, opinion, humor, entertainment and cultural reporting in the Sandpoint Reader is freely available in our print newspaper as well as here on our website, we have a favor to ask. The Reader is locally owned and free of the large corporate, big-money influence that affects so much of the media today. We're supported entirely by our valued advertisers and readers. We're committed to continued free access to our paper and our website here with NO PAYWALL - period. But of course, it does cost money to produce the Reader. If you're a reader who appreciates the value of an independent, local news source, we hope you'll consider a voluntary contribution. You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.

You can contribute at either Paypal or Patreon.

Contribute at Patreon Contribute at Paypal

You may also like...

Close [x]

Want to support independent local journalism?

The Sandpoint Reader is our town's local, independent weekly newspaper. "Independent" means that the Reader is locally owned, in a partnership between Publisher Ben Olson and Keokee Co. Publishing, the media company owned by Chris Bessler that also publishes Sandpoint Magazine and Sandpoint Online. Sandpoint Reader LLC is a completely independent business unit; no big newspaper group or corporate conglomerate or billionaire owner dictates our editorial policy. And we want the news, opinion and lifestyle stories we report to be freely available to all interested readers - so unlike many other newspapers and media websites, we have NO PAYWALL on our website. The Reader relies wholly on the support of our valued advertisers, as well as readers who voluntarily contribute. Want to ensure that local, independent journalism survives in our town? You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.