Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Tobi, Tobi, Tobi, Tobi!

Went to the clinic the other day for my nebulised Tobi trial with the physiotherapist. The trial is to take nebulised tobramycin for a month and see how things go, and hopefully see some LF improvement over the next month as my blows have been a bit rubbish recently. We did the test and she also rejigged my iNeb with her laptop from tidal flow to TIM (Target inhalation mode) this is better because it quarters the time needed to do the inhalation, and it turns out I will need this extra time with all the extra stuff I'll be inhaling next month. She asked me about my iNeb compliance before she brought up a flow chart telling her exactly how compliant I had been with my nebs over the last 12 months! It turns out my compliance was only 70%, I was well embarrassed, I felt like a naughty schoolboy!

I had heard that Tobi was inhaled once a day, but for the monthly trial I will be nebbing twice daily with an old compressor neb (like I used back in the 80s! Doh!) You take it twice a day and also you need to nebulise Ventolin before it to stop the possible bronchiectasis. that'll be fine in the evening when the kids are in bed, but I will struggle to fit that into my morning schedule, which consists of getting showered, doing a bit of physio (in the shower), getting breakfast, getting Oscar and Abby dressed and fed, and dropping either Oscar or Abby off at nursery / school before work. I think I'm going to have to use the iNeb for Dnase in the car on the way to work, which I don't really like doing as it's not safe and I could get pulled over. The physio also said I should neb Tobi in a ventilated room away from the kids. Hum. Looks like I'm getting up even earlier in the morning...

Anyway enough moaning! I actually felt quite loose in the chest after the trial tobi neb so hopefully I will see some real benefit when the month is over.

3 comments:

Tori said...

Thats tricky but one month of getting up earlier won't hurt :)

Me said...

why cant you do your tobi in the i-neb? I don't do ventolin beforehand, seems abit silly to try it without first! Tobi is twice a day, some people do it once for some reason though. I am on it all the time instead of one month on and one off, its def better than promixin so hope it works for you!
Naughty boy with your compliance! I wish they would do that on mine and then maybe they would believe me when I say I am compliant!

Woody said...

Gemma - I don't know, she showed me how to do the TIM with the ventolin and I was expecting to do the tobi in the ineb the same way so I was a bit disappointed really.

Having said all that it only takes 10 minutes with the compressor; it's just nosiy and a pain to clean really!