Vocal chords symptoms and conditions

My dad is 73 years old and has been in the hospital, rehab, nursing care, back to hospital, currently back in rehab since August 3, 2008. He was on Flomax which he was taken off of the first week in August after arriving to the hospital with low blood pressure and leg weakness to the point of being unable to walk. He had been taking it for years so doctors did not think Flomax the cause. However, once they ret'd him on Flomax he was unable to hold his head up when sitting in wheel chair (drooling) and very unresponsive. He also vomited and just stared at it, unable to respond to try to clean himself up. They took him off Flomax with some improvement. (He could hold his head up and respond.) His weakness declined to the point that he can no longer pee/poop without a diaper, can't swallow, can't speak (due to weakened vocal chords), and has no energy. He has a feeding tube. To date, they have not been able to pin point what dad's problem is. I noticed that on October 10, 2008, they returned him to Flomax. He again is sitting in wheelchair with head hanging down. No energy to do rehab. I have requested they take him off Flomax and LEAVE him off. I don't trust this drug. I think his long-term use of this drug could be what's killing my him.

I took Avelox for a sinus infection, and had the worst week of my life! It made me so thirsty, I had to have a bottle of water at my side constantly. I am a singer, and it dried out my throat and made my vocal chords swollen. Also, it gave me panic attacks, confusion and ruined the show I had to perform in. Next time, I will just live with the sinus infection. This was hell!

For the last 2 yrs I had a horrendous cough that plagued me night & day. My Dr. didn't know what was causing the cough, couldn't give me any cough medicine to alleviate the condition. In addition to coughing, I would lose my voice. I went to an ENT specialist. She found me to have pre-polyps on my vocal chords, diagnosed me with 'vocal chord dysfunction' & told me surgery would be useless as the pre-polyps would reappear. This last June, I had a bout with bronchitis, severe enough to seek medical aid from the Emergency room Dr.'s. While there, the Dr. treating me asked about my cough. After listening to my list of aggravations, he asked if my Primary Dr. had told me that 'coughing' is a side effect of Lipitor. NO! I hadn't been told that!! --But, I QUIT taking Lipitor that day, haven't taken it since & though I still cough, somewhat, it's NOTHING compared to what I'd been suffering--for two years!!..

My dosage has been 250/50 and I have been using the medication for about 3 years. I have experienced increased mucus, hoarseness, and thrush. I now have the thrush under control by thoroughly rinsing my mouth after using the inhaler. The hoarseness was not caused directly by the Advair, rather it was caused by frequently clearing my throat due to the mucus. My wife is a speech language pathologist and noticed my frequent throat clearing and explained that throat clearing irritates the vocal chords and causes hoarseness. By avoiding harsh throat clearing the hoarseness has gone away. I still have issues with thick mucus but it is minor nuisance compared with the improvements to my breathing.

My doc assured me that it wasn't possible that my hoarseness was due to a residual build-up of the med on my vocal chords. I raised the question, "If there could not be any build up, why the need to rinse ones mouth after each use." I was told I needed to do that to prevent thrush. That's all well and good but still leaves my query a bit open. It stands to reason that if one could get thrush from the medication being in ones mouth, one could also have other problems from it being in ones system.

I've been doing research on asthma and other medical issues. If you want to do some good reading, look up Dr. Mercola. Also, look up MMS. Interesting stuff. I also found one woman's recommendation that at the start of a wheeze, let some sea salt dissolve in your mouth and then drino a glass of water. (Those with problems taking salt in should be careful about that.) And also, drink more water and check out your overall nutrition and fitness levels. Positively impacting those may make changes you'd be surprised by!

Jack Lalanne spoke against refined sugars and becoming fit way back in the 50's and not many listened. Look at a current photo of him today, a man in his 90's, and think about it. Look up sugars on Mercola's webpage as well. I had no idea the things sugar can do to ones body.

Blessings

I have been on Advair for approximately 8 years and have recently gone off of it. I posted a message earlier detailing the side effects that I experienced from going off of it, as I must have gotten used to living with the side effect so much that I didn't notice.

Anyway, one of the major reasons for going off of Advair was a constant problem with oral thrush. I took liquid medication for it for about two months, however, soon realized that I had a slight allergy to the medication I was prescribed. I found that by rinsing my mouth and gargalling (sp?) thoroughly I was able to finally get rid of the thrush, which also cleared up the hoarseness in my voice. My family doctor told me that sometimes the thrush is so deep in your throat that it will begin to grow on your vocal chords. Other specialists told me that the hoarseness wouldn't go away until I stopped taking Advair, however I found otherwise.

I was prescribed Advair a little over 3 months ago to treat my asthma. It was great for the first six days. No asthma symptoms whatsoever, even after jogging, and I felt great! I woke up the seventh day feeling as though my vocal cords were encased in an incredible amount of flem and my voice went from a baritone to a tenor; I'm a guy so this was disconcerting. During the second week I began experiencing nasal drippage, uncontrollable trembling, extreme physical weakness, memory loss, an unnerving lack of mental clarity and trouble maintaining my temper. The third week of using Advair I began struggling with overwelming thoughts of suicide. All of these things are completely out of character for me. I don't take any other medicine, prescribed or not, have always been healthy and am rarely sick so it was a no-brainer as to what was causing me to experience these things. I stopped taking Advair at that time (after the third week) and promptly developed a headache and other withdrawel type feelings in my throat and chest that took about a week to go away. I also promptly developed a cold that I could not get rid of for a month and a half as well as the flu which I hadn't had in years; I also had asthma related difficulties that were worse than before I started Advair but powered thru those episodes using Primatine Mist. In the month following discarding my Advair disk I noticed a gradual improvement in all the before mentioned Advair affected areas and thankfully the most immediate area of improvement was emotional (i.e., no longer suicidal). One of my vocal chords is still painful but at least I no longer sound prepubescent.

I started researching the side effects of Advair after the second week I was on it and found a reference to it possibly causing an overgrowth of Candidas Albicans. After researching that I'm convinced ultimately that is what I experienced.

I had a chronic cough which got worse and developped into bronchitis. My doctor gave me 10 days of 500 mg levaquin. Ten days later I went back, still coughing, even though the bronchitis was a bit better. He gave me another prescription for 7 days of levaquin with a refill.
A week or so into this routine, my legs started to hurt a lot. I thought I was just out of shape and needed to get back to the gym and do some stretching exercises. I could barely climb the stairs to the gym, but I must say that after working with the trainer and stretching a lot (and it hurt a lot) I was able to walk easier and the pain lifted quite a bit. . . for a while.
I also have developped total diarrhea, which made sense to me; because I was trying to kill bad bacteria in my system which I thought was causing the bronchitis.
Fortunately, last week I decided to go to another doctor because I wasn't getting better and I felt my old doctor was just overwhelmed by the health care system and was just going through the motions. This doctor, an ENT doctor, immediately diagnosed me with LPRD (acid reflux which goes all the way to the vocal chords, resulting in cough, tightness in the throat, etc.) I know he's right because I have felt the acid reflux thing at night when I have eaten late and had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner.
Tomorrow I'm heading to a gastro doc to attack the diarrhea, but I wondered if the leg pain had anything to do with the levaquin, since it came about after a week or so on the stuff. and lo and behold found all these postings which have now scared whatever shit I have left out of me!
I'm off to get some magnesium, as someone suggested and would appreciate any other tips anyone might have. My only tip is that stretching out your legs and butt muscles, does temporarily help a bit.

After being on Servent for years with no side effects that I was aware of, the doctor changed me to Advair. He mentioned that I would need to gargle every time I used it as it could inflame my vocal chords. I have been on it for about 3 weeks and I just can't talk at work. I gargle every time, but it does not help. After reading these responses I am going to stop tonight and go back to my Servent. Keep the comments coming!

My husband was given a sample of this for a month-long bout of bronchitis and we are now thinking it has done permanent damage to his vocal chords. He only used it 5 times, got thrush (yeast infection) in his throat and is still hoarse after a week of being off of it. Does anyone know the history of this drug and has the word "class action lawsuit" crossed anyone's mind besides mine? I am amazed at the way pharmaceutical companies run the healthcare business in this country!

I don't want to go off on a rant here, but are people aware that a large portion of the FDA's operating budget is provided by pharmaceutical manufacturers? This isn't our first experience with this type of thing and I'm about to launch a grassroots campaign to educate the public. Maybe they'll stop believing all the marketing hype.

I'm thinking that the pharmaceutical companies ought to heed the Hippocratic oath - FIRST, DO NO HARM. Wouldn't it be a remarkably different world if they would take all the money they're spending on marketing and use it to lower the price of orphan and AIDS drugs? They keep saying that research is expensive - and advertising on every possible television show, radio and magazines is cheap? Hello? Are we going to be sheep or are we going to be citizens and hold these companies responsible for what they're doing. Thanks for letting me vent. Please contact me if you want to do something about this. And no, I'm not an attorney, but I'm a writer and I think I just found out what my first book is going to be about...

I have been taking Lisinopril for 7 months. The cough started after 2 weeks, so I went to a doctor thinking I hada strange kind of flu. I sometimes can´t speak after coughing, seems that my vocal chords have an irritation. This doctor prescribed me antibiotics, as it seemed that I was experiencing some kind of pneumonia. I was fine for 2 weeks, but again I began with the dry coughing, specially at night and when running a little. After I visited my Cardiologist, he told me that my cough was a reaction to Lisinopril, so now he has prescribed me another medicine.

After I had a bout with bronchitis, then pheumonia and finally congestion that would not go away advair was prescribed. I started out taking 250mg then 500mg was prescribed. I am having problems with the roof of my mouth being sore and I have horseness. I feel like it is damaging my vocal chords but I am not sure. I will go to a pulmonary specialist this week to determine what I have for sure. My primary doctor seems to think that I do have asthma.

I have been on Advair 250/50 for the past few months. It stopped the chronic short coughs and helped my asthma but I started having more problems with my throat. I am a professional vocalist and lost my voice. Went to my ENT and they found that I had an infection on my vocal chords. I stopped Advair yesterday and am going to check for something different. I am amazed at how little my GP knew re: Advair. I asked him this question two months ago and he said I could keep taking Advair without any problems indefinitely. A few minutes on the internet told me different. He must not have internet access or maybe he is using dial-up.

* Hoarseness (continuous)
* Phlegm in throat causing me to clear my throat frequently (my spouse is a speech therapist and she said frequent throat clearing will irritate the vocal chords and cause hoarseness)
* Canker sores occur more frequently and take longer to heal
* Two occasions of thrush (Oral candidiasis) over past year

I have always rinsed after using Advair. This medication has effectively controlled my asthma symptoms.