Okay so I thought I would post this after my visit to the doctor yesterday.
First some simple background, I'm an adult male who suffers from a life long case of Asthma and treat it using an inhaler. A short time ago maybe the end of last year I found my Inhaler to be quite different. I asked the pharmacy what was going on I was informed that due to a change in law the old style of inhalers were no longer allowed to be manufactured because the propellant in them contained CFCs.
Now two problems I found with this right off, first the new propellant is ethanol based which the first few times I used it, it actually irritated my respiratory tract and second this allowed the drug companies to exploit a hole in patent laws so now what used to cost me like $5-$10 a month now costs over $30 because they can’t produce generics.
Now for the real kicker I’m in the office talking about meds and I tell my doctor that I don’t know if it's psychological or what but that the inhaler doesn’t seem to be working as effectively as it was before the change over.
My doctor informs me that it isn’t just me that doctors nation wide have been getting complaints stating the same thing I said. He said that so far no one’s really sure why it’s not as effective and that one theory is that the new propellant being used isn’t allowing the medication to get as deep into the lungs.
I understand the need to protect our planet but while there are so many larger air pollution sources out there it seems insane to me that the government would choose to address this issue now but then again it helps make the drug companies more money and who cares if it jeopardizes the lives of people with a medical condition.
AZ