What’s corny about asthma inhalers?
The propellant in modern HFA puffer-style inhalers almost always contains ethanol from corn.
There are several steroid or combination steroid-and-topical-anti inflammatory diskus inhalers that don’t use a propellant at all, but rather contain dry powder that you use the power of your inhaled breath to pull into yoyur lungs. Some preventative diskus inhalers are: Advair Diskus, Asmanex, and Flovent Diskus.
Note that so far all diskus inhalers contain lactose, so the severely dairy allergic are out of luck here.
However steroid inhalers are only useful for preventing an asthma attack.. they won’t treat one that is already happening.
What do I do if I’m already having an attack?
Your best bet would be the Ventolin brand HFA inhaler. It contains contains albuterol sulfate, but the propellant is not corn ethanol, it’s tetrafluoroethane (HFA 134a). The Xopenex HFA inhaler also uses this propellant but contains other exipients such as oleic acid and dehydrated alcohol which is most likely from corn. Ventolin has no other ingredients. I use the Ventolin HFA and sometimes I react to it just a little, so I don’t think it’s entirely corn free, but so far the benefit has outweighed the negative outcomes. Other inhalers including the popular ProAir made my throat close.
If you can’t tolerate that, your best option is to get a nebulizer, which is a device that does the propelling for you. Then you just put the powdered drug which can be compounded corn free into the chamber and get the medication delivered. (Some nebulizer powders may be corn free off-the-shelf, check inactive ingredients.) There are pocket nebulizers for carrying with you however they are still somewhat bulky.
Really? That’s all?
Well, that’s all unless you’re Canadian. I just came across this: There is a Ventolin Diskus inhaler available in Canada. If you’re unfamiliar, diskus inhalers are non-propellant style inhalers where you simply suck on them to get the medication into your lungs.
There are many ways to get prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies, however doing so is illegal so I can’t recommend it as a good option. If one were to choose to do so, however, this article gives you a few pointers on the best way to avoid getting counterfeit medications. This is crucial as a counterfeit med could mean a corn-containing med, not just one that doesn’t do what’s intended.
