Albuterol

Well this is exciting. I'd noticed lately that my inhaler was less effective than usual. It's a little light, but not so much that it's run out, so it's probably the fact that it expired last August. I'm guessing that in the case of inhalers, the propellant can slowly leach out, making expiration date more relevant than in many other drugs. This is not the first time that I've noticed the effectiveness decrease a year or two after the expiration date.

In case it wasn't clear, my asthma's quite mild, and I know my triggers well. I typically take one puff before exercising a few times a month (yeah, I don't exercise as much as I should), two puffs after the fact if I have to walk fast on very cold dry days, two puffs preventatively if I'm going into an environment with dogs or some other known allergen, or two puffs after the fact if I have an unexpected allergic reaction to something. This amounts to using one inhaler every few years, so I usually need to replace them due to reduced effectiveness after expiration rather than them actually running out.

When I had a checkup a few months ago, my NP mentioned in passing something about albuterol prescribing changing, something about brand names and generics, and I didn't think twice about it. I called up my online drug company today to get a new prescription, and the operator asked what the brand name was. I said "Armstrong," and she said "no, it's either..." and rattled off a string of brand names that I didn't see on my inhaler canister anywhere. I said "I heard there was some change in brands, and I got this one a few years ago so it must be before that change." And she demurred and implied that she couldn't get a prescription if I didn't have the brand name already. So I called my doctor's office and told the tech that I needed albuterol called in to my local physical pharmacy so she'll get the info from the doctor when the doctor has the time, and then I Wikipediaed.

Albuterol in the old form (like I apparently have) used CFCs as the propellant. As of the end of 2008, by international treaty the FDA banned all CFC-based inhalers. A number of companies (the ones rattled off to me by the operator) have developed proprietary non-CFC propelled inhalers, with the result that no generic albuterol inhalers currently exist, and with the added bonus of an average increase in cost of $20 per inhaler - a benefit which I expect will be passed on to me, the consumer, when I actually get the prescription.

So now I'm wondering which of the brands my doctor will prescribe me, if there are additional side effects I have to worry about, if I'll have to go to the doc in person to discuss this, and if it'll cost a lot more. Anyone here use an albuterol inhaler and notice any difference around 2008-2009 when things changed?

PSA: LJ tracking your clicks

When you click on certain links from LJ, such as eBay, or Amazon.com, instead of actually going to that link directly it does two things: (1) pops it up in a new window, and (2) routes you through "outboundlink.net" first, so they're tracking where you go.

Try clicking on this link for example:

http://www.amazon.com/Applied-Cryptography-Protocols-Algorithms-Source/dp/0471117099/

Do NOT right-click to open it in a new window or you'll miss it. Just click once to open it in this window.

If you think that's a crock of shit too, there is a way to "opt out" of it. Go to the admin console here, and type in "set opt_exclude_stats 1" (without the quotes) and reload any page that you were reading for it to take effect.

More posts on this:
http://shatterstripes.livejournal.com/1065670.html
http://caffeinepuppy.livejournal.com/214632.html

Pass it on.

Edit: Some people report not seeing it. There's a few possibilities: (1) it's happening too fast for you to see the bump forward, in which case look for the new window popping open when you directly click. Try installing an add-on that explicitly pauses with each bump forward - see brynndragon's comment for one for Firefox. (2) It may be that this only happens in some styles (including mine), so it may be that the javascript is only embedded in the code of some styles that LJ provides rather than being LJ-wide.

Edit again: There's some evidence that rather than tracking our visits to other websites, that the purpose of this is that LJ is actually trying to scrape off some profit by inserting their referral info when we visit commercial sites such as Amazon - the links above have more informed discussion about it. The actual insertion of LJ's referral info would be by the "outboundlink.net" website. This does not exclude the possibility of LJ/outboundlink tracking where we go from LJ, they could very well be doing both.

Son of Edit: Apparently the original intent was to add the affiliate/referral info if the original link did not have it, not to strip the original affiliate/referral info from links that had one originally. It was also supposed to be a transparent process, meaning the interference/tracking by outboundlink was supposed to be hidden so we weren't supposed to ever know about it. Jah, that's so much better. Source