Today began ok. I got quite a lot done in the morning. Worked up four reactions. Purified 2 of them. Then around 245p, one of the solvent bottles in lab broke spontaneously and the solvent started spilling out of it. It was resting on a tray but the tray was quite shallow. The bottle is(was) 4L glass wrapped in plastic coating (supposedly to prevent breakage and to offer containment of glass if it did break). Anyhoo, I had the bright idea to try to move it to a large empty Rubbermaid container (which we use to store our dirty glassware) to try to contain it. Yeah, good thing I stepped back because the plastic broke open and the sh...uhh...solvent spilled everywhere. Luckily it didn't spill on me or my clothes. The last thing I need is to have to fill out a stupid incident report and also having exposure to this solvent. We had to leave the lab for a while though. Then our safety guys went in with special suits on to clean it up. Much drama and excitement that lasted 45 min. The best part was watching them get into those suits...hehe.
I so didn’t need that this afternoon. Had it all planned – the work I was going to get done before I left early at 4p to make it to my doc appt. So I ended up just doing less than I wanted. But tomorrow is another day, and the work will still be there waiting for me. The good news is that I got to work at 755am. Not the 730am I was shooting for but still good enough as I just got in my minimum 8h.
I went to my allergy/asthma doctor today for follow-up. I told him about the muscle spasms. He says it’s possible that I’m having a rare adverse reaction to the serevent which is in the Advair that I’m taking.
Advair contains 2 medicines: 1. Fluticasone propionate – corticosteroid, and 2. Serevent – long-acting bronchodilator. I’ve been on the Advair for ~2 months now. In the side effect leaflet that comes with serevent, the incident rate is 3 out of 341 for people who had muscle cramps and spasms with serevent and 1 out of 576 with the placebo. Apparently that’s considered rare. I don’t get it. Of course this is for patients with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) so maybe the numbers would be less for asthma patients.
So he told me to take Asmanex instead of the Advair for 2 weeks and see if the spasms go away. He gave me a 2wk supply and I’m to call him in a week or so and let him know if I notice a difference i.e no more spasms, then he’d write me an Rx. He thinks that might solve the problem. The dosage I have to take is quite high (2 puffs 2x day) but it only contains the corticosteroid so if I’m reacting to the serevent, then this should work. During his exam, he looked in my nose and he was like - you seem to be having all the side effects. Nose bleeds from the flonase. Tremors (in my hands, only notice when I have to do very detailed or fine work) from the albuterol. Rash/cold symptoms from singulair. And now, maybe muscle spasms from the serevent (another gem about serevent here...hopefully not me). He told me that he hopes that this is the simple answer. Otherwise, he said that I’ll probably be poked and prodded and then referred to a neurologist (thanks for tip doc). Then he made a joke which was kinda funny but not really. He said – you don’t want to be a case study for these people (with all my adverse reactions). And then I said – yeah I don’t want to end up in some medical journal. He told me that it could be affecting my potassium levels and then asked if I ate bananas or drank orange juice. To which I replied – rarely to the bananas and fairly often to the OJ. He said that I should drink plenty OJ. Not a hardship for me. I love OJ. As far as my asthma it finally seems to be under control. I only need the albuterol once every day or every other day. This doc is really cool. He and talked about all of the meds I'm taking and b/c I know quite a bit about them he went into some detail.
I've got to go research this Asmanex. Never heard of it before. Wacky inhaler too or twisthaler as its called. The counter on it is cool though. My regular albuterol has no counter so I have to keep a rough tally so I can tell when it needs to be replaced.
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