Flovent HFA (fluticasone propionate 220 mcg)

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My Samters is possibly an anomaly because I had anosmia, congestion, aspirin allergy, polyps, and plugged sinuses but no asthma symptoms. Initially, before the aspirin allergy appeared, we were treating the symptoms as allergy. The congestion got so bad that in February 2006 I had anterior & posterior ethmoidectomy, bilateral maxillary atrosomy, and bilateral polypectomy. This helped but did not eliminate the congestion and discharge. In July 2006 I was recovering from a rotator cuff repair and took 400 mg of naproxen in the evening for the pain - thought I was going to die. Luckily the next day I was seeing the doctor who was treating my nasal symptoms and mentioned this. He said, "oh, you have Samters". With that we had a diagnosis and proceeded to try various treatments. Large doses of prednisone (60 mg/day) would give me temporary relief but when I tapered off the symptoms would return. At first the large prednisone doses would give my some sense of smell and taste which disappeared when I tapered the dose. Later this effect was absent. I desensitized to aspirin and took 1300 mg daily for quite a long time with no benefit. More recently I was taking 325 mg aspirin daily and 20 mg of prednisone every other day but still needed phenyephrine nasal spray on occasion to open my nasal passages and had no drainage from my sinuses after irrigating.

I'm a retired pharmacist, so my doc lets me try most everything if I think it might help. There was a post about using Flovent HFA 220 mcg (fluticasone propionate) as a nasal inhalant and I was willing to try. Using the Flovent with a baby bottle nipple with the end removed I started. Within 3 days my sinuses were showing some drainage after flushing. By day 14 the post flush drainage was normal. Day 18 I was detecting faint sense of smell and taste. Day 20 sense of smell and taste was better and continued to improve. On day 40 I reduced my prednisone from 20 mg every other day to 15 mg every other day. Day 47 reduced prednisone to 10 mg every other day. Day 55 reduced the prednisone to 5 mg. Smell and taste still very good - this is the longest period I have been able to say that since 2005. My current regimen is 1 puff in each nostril of Flovent HFA 220 mcg AM and PM, 325 mg aspirin, 5 mg prednisone, and nasal irrigation AM & PM. Today, day 56, I'm going to switch to Flovent HFA 110 mcg and see if the good results continue. If after a couple of weeks I can still smell and taste I intend to try to eliminate the oral prednisone entirely.

Today my doc checked me and said that the right nostril and sinus were perfect with no polyps. The left nostril which had a small polyp at my last exam was also polyp free and had just a small amount of crusting (1+ on a scale of 1-10).

I apologize for the long posting but it might help someone. My very special thanks to whomever posted the information about using Flovent (an oral inhalant) in the nose. Fo me it worked - so far.