My Meds

The primary ways in which CF affects me is my lungs, sinuses, and stomach (I have acid reflux). I am lucky because I do not need to take digestive enzymes before I eat. Here is a list of all of the medications I take.

Morning:

• Rinse my sinuses with saline (to wash out junk)
• Veramyst Nasal Spray (for my sinuses)
• Allegra (for my allergies)
• Albuterol (to open up my airways; I take this either via inhaler or nebulizer, depending on how wheezy I am feeling) 5-10 minutes
• Hypertonic Saline via nebulizer (to thin the mucus in my lungs) 10-20 minutes
• The vest (to shake the mucus out of my lungs; I can do this at the same time as albuterol and hypertonic saline) 20 minutes
• Advair (to keep my airways open)
• Colistin via nebulizer (an antibiotic taken every other month to kill the bacteria in my lungs) 10-20 minutes

Total Time = 25-50 minutes

Evening:

• Veramyst
• Albuterol via nebulizer
• Hypertonic Saline
• The Vest
• Advair
• Colistin every other month
• Pre-natal vitamins (my dr has all his CF patients take these, not just me)
• Mucinex (to keep my mucus thin)
• Zegrid (for my acid reflux)

Total Time = 30-50 minutes

So, as you can see, I spend 1-1.5 hours a day on my treatments. Add to that a full-time job, exercising 5 hours a week (also critical in CF care), a marriage, and a social life, and you may be able to see why time management is a big issue for me. I really don’t know how CF patients who have even more treatments do it!