Discuss this with the prescribing physician. S/He should look up any
medications in a PDR - Physician's Desk Reference, which lists active
and other ingredients to all prescription medications.

You can also check online. Most medications have pages on the web,
including "Prescribing Information", the detailed information found
in the PDR. It's a little daunting to read, especially for us
lay-persons. Risks and adverse reactions are all listed. It takes
careful reading (and medical experience) to figure out which are
likely and which are highly unusual.

Many of the powdered medications do have lactose in them.
Conventional wisdom says that lactose is milk sugar, not milk
protein. That said, it simply isn't a good idea to inhale any
byproduct of something you're allergic to, even though it's thought
to be a "non-allergenic" part.

My non-dairy-allergic (but lactose intolerant) son uses Advair,
http://us.gsk.com/products/assets/us_advair.pdf, which contains
lactose. Interestingly, the information page says "formulation
containing lactose (which contains milk proteins)."  I guess either
conventional wisdom is getting updated or the corporate attorneys are
tell them to add that, just in case.

Neither my milk-allergic son nor I use medications containing any
milk products. He uses albuterol aerosol and Pulmicort powdered
inhaler. Pulmicort is one of the few inhaled powdered inhaled
medications that contains only the medication (according to its
information page,
http://www.astrazeneca-us.com/pi/pulmicortturbohaler.pdf), with no
other ingredients. I use albuterol aerosol and Flovent aerosol.
Neither contains any dairy products.

Please don't go to a pharmacy and buy an over-the-counter asthma
inhaler. IMHO, it's very dangerous and shouldn't be sold OTC at
all.  What you give your child to prevent and/or treat asthma goes
well beyond "brand" - your child's pediatrician (or, better yet, your
child's allergist) is in a good position to determine which type of
medication, which brand, etc. That said, they don't always track
which medications have milk ingredients. When s/he's writing the
prescription, ask if it has any milk products, and tell him/her that
you don't want to give your child any medication containing any milk
products. Also tell your pharmacist, who should record that fact and
check all prescriptions. Since there are many options to choose from,
it shouldn't be an issue.

G'Luck,

Mark

At 01:38 PM 10/19/2005, Karin McDonough wrote:
>--- Juliann Seebauer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > My son is getting more allergic to cats and dogs. I think he'll need
> > an inhaler.
> > What brand is milk- free?
> >
>The ones you have to look out for are the dry powder
>inhalers.  Several of them
>use milk protein powder as one of the inert ingredients.  I know for a fact
>that Advair contains milk.
>
>The aerosol inhalers are all fine to the best of my knowledge.  I'm currently
>using Albuterol and Flovent.
>
>You'll probably need to read the inhaler insert and all of the fine print to
>figure out what is in it.  The doctors will NOT know.
>
>
>Karin McDonough
>
>
>
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