I have used many asthma and allergy medications throughout my life. When i was a baby i nearly died from asthma and was pumped full of steroids to live. Since i was born i have taken oral treatments, prednisone, albuterol inhalers, and now Advair. (also taken many allergy meds such as Claritan, Allegra, Flonase, Nasal Cort, ect. etc.) I was wondering if these medications or if asthma in general can slow/stunt growth.
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Q: The effects of Asthma medicines on the stunting growth.
Answers (2)
7/13/09 3:23pm
Hi Asthmatic,
How wonderful that you have survived all your health challenges! Let me give you my thoughts on the questions you propose here. First off, the steroids used to treat asthma have been shown in studies to have some effect on growth rate in children. However, experts have not been able to establish yet whether the growth eventually catches up or if it is a permanent thing.
Secondly, I'm wondering if your mother smoked while pregnant with you, as mine did. (They didn't used to know it was bad for the baby.) Smoking during pregnancy is a definite risk factor for the child to later develop asthma. Smoking during pregnancy has also been linked to smaller birth weight babies. So that could account for an asthmatic's smaller size too, I think.
But regardless of what might cause a smaller stature in some asthmatics (if it does at all), asthma treatments are considered quite safe, including the steroid kind. And the benefits of taking asthma medicine far outweigh any possible side effects. So, I would encourage you to keep taking your medicine to stay healthy and in control of your asthma. And if you have questions about how a drug is affecting you, then by all means talk with your doctor about alternatives!
To your health,
Kathi
7/14/09 12:40pm
I was literally told once that being on oral steroids would definitely stunt my grown, and still I grew up to be a normal height. For more information, check out this link.
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