Pharmacist Abraham, discusses Turbohaler. How To Use A Turbohaler. Symbicort, Pulmicort, Bricanyl Turbohaler.
Hey guys in this week’s video we’re going to learn how to use one of these bad boys you might be holding this in your hand right now and thinking how on earth do i use it well not to worry this turbohaler we’re going to learn how to store it we’re going to learn how to clean it we’re going to learn loads and loads of pro
Tips so let’s begin now before you become a turbohaler pro it’s just super important to remind you always read the information leaflet that comes with any medication this is super important just to make sure that you’re safe and suitable to use that medication also if you have any questions about the medication
If any of this doesn’t make sense at all always remember you can speak to your pharmacist you can speak to your nurse you can speak to your doctor you can speak to any of your healthcare professionals for more advice so please do not forget that now let’s begin okay so let’s begin with the basics what is a turbohaler
Well a turbohaler is just a medication delivery system it’s prescribed by your healthcare professional for many different diseases for example copd asthma and it’s one of the types of inhalers that we use to get that medication to where we want it inhalation so this means it’s not like your common inhalers
That you may see on tv that you click and they make that sound and it goes and it’s propelled outwards and you breathe it in the turbohaler so it’s driven in by your inhalation so by that forced breath in it actually delivers the medicine into your lung so the medicine in a turbohaler is a dry powder and it’s kept
Here right at the bottom there’s a reservoir of medication and it’s all kept in there so unlike your mdi inhalers your metered dose inhalers where you click it doesn’t have that propellant so like i said it’s driven by your inhalation and it’s really useful for patients who struggle with timing for example which you get
With the metered dose inhalers or they’re struggling to click the button which does happen for patients with arthritis for example okay so we’re nearly done with the background promise we’ll be going on to how we use the turbohaler in a second but remember you’re going to become a turbohaler pro this is your
Turbohaler i’m going to give the bottom we have our turning grip thing here is the air inlet i don’t know if you can see that hole let’s try and focus it into that hole hopefully you can see it that is the air inlet so it’s super important when you’re using it you don’t block that because if you do you can’t
Breathe in okay so you’ve got your air inlet there inside this unfortunately i can’t open it to show you it and there’s a scraper there which when we twist it it gets it into the place into the chamber where it needs to go and then there’s an air tube that goes from here all the way up into the actual top where you
Breathe in that is the basics of the turbohaler but it’s going to be super important you know this because at the end of this video you are going to become that turbohaler pro you’re going to be teaching your healthcare professional about this turbohaler so let’s begin okay so we’ve now got to the good bit we’re now
Going to learn how to use the turbohaler congratulations on getting this far this part is going to be so easy for you now because we now know all about the turbohaler we now know how it works we know about the mechanisms of how it works inside so learning it is going to be a piece of cake but it will take a bit of trial
And error i’m not going to promise you it’s going to be easy to begin with but after a while it’s going to come to you it’s going to be really easy to understand and you will become the turbohaler pro okay so let’s begin now i want you to imagine you’ve just got a brand new turbohaler from the chemist okay
It’s nice and clean it’s looking lovely okay now this is a demonstration turbohaler so it has no drugs in it unfortunately it doesn’t have the cap thing that goes on so we’re gonna imagine it has a cap and i’m going to screw it off and i’m going to take off now we’ve got the turbohaler on my hand the first time you use the
Turbohaler you need to get it ready this is why i say it’s super important that you read the information leaflet to check for this section so check on the information leaflet what it says to do for the first time you use the turbohaler this one for example in my hand that i’ve got is a symbicort one and it needs
To be primed before using it and the way that you do that for the symbicort is you turn it in one direction whichever way it this click okay and then you do it again to use okay but some other turbohaler are different so please read the information that you flip also please do remember whenever you’re
Using a turbohaler always hold it upright always hold it like this never hold it like that okay like this and i’m going to tell you exactly why in a bit the other thing i want you to do before you take any dose after you’ve taken off the cap always have a quick look in the hole in the mouthpiece to make sure there’s no
Dust there’s no foreign bodies there’s nothing in there okay because we’re about to inhale this so it’s super important there’s nothing in there because we don’t want to get anything dodgy going down into our lungs okay so now let’s learn how to use the turbohaler so let’s say for that previous thing that
I just did when i primed the inhaler let’s say i had that dose and this is the second dose that i’m going to take so we’re going to do the same thing we’re not going to do it twice we’re i’m going to turn it one way and hear that click that means that the medication is now ready and it’s in the actual chamber for you
To breathe in of how this works so you understand that bar and the reason why i say you should always hold your turbohaler upright is if this did actually have medicine in it unfortunately it’s a tester one if it actually had the powdered medication in the chamber now and if i was to hold it like this you’d
See all this powder just fall out and that is a waste of dose okay but it’s not so let’s say the powder is still there and i didn’t do that next thing i’m going to do is hold it like so i’m not going to cover that bottom air inlet i’m gonna hold that so i’m gonna take a deep gonna breathe out and i’m gonna wrap my
Lips around the mouthpiece and take a deep forceful not too forceful but it is quite forceful breath there’s no gas propeller or anything like that drug in the turbohaler does require quite to take in the breath for as long as i can and then afterwards i’m going to remove the of my mouth and i’ll hold my
Breath for about 10 seconds or as long as i can really and then gently breathe so like so very simple i should have mentioned to you this actually has a little whistle in it so if you look at the kind of force that i’m doing it’s a lot stronger i’d probably say it’s more of a watch if i do it with a normal breath
In it won’t make the whistling sound but if i do so that’s the kind of inhalation sort of speed that we need to do to get the turbohaler dose right if we don’t do it with that kind of speed and that kind of force you’ll probably end up horrible taste in your mouth and it won’t go to the right part so if you
Are noticing you’re getting all the powder in your mouth and you’re not able to breathe in with that much force then you need to speak to your healthcare professional okay so that they can check how how deeply you can breathe in we have devices like this for example which we’re then able to test if you’re actually
You do have the capacity to actually take a turbohaler breathing because it does require quite a bit of force so i hope that helped now once you’re done with that dose follow the instructions from your healthcare professional if you need to do another dose you now know what to do and once you’re all done get the lid that
We had over here my imaginary lid and twist it back on also please remember that these turbohaler do have a counter as well always check the counter number as well to make sure that you’ve actually got doses left in it and you’re not actually just breathing in nothing because that’s super important to remember
Another thing to mention is as well if you are using a steroid turbohaler it is important to try and use it let’s say it’s twice a day for example the dose i always say to patients try and use it before brushing your teeth so if you’re doing it twice a day once in the morning and once in the evening before going to bed
In the morning before you brush your teeth and the evening before you brush your teeth again that way it’s going to reduce your chances of getting oral thrush which can be one of the side effects of using a steroid inhaler and for the full information on all the side effects or on how to use your turbohaler again
Please read the information these are that comes with this medication and also it’s a really good idea if you’re struggling at all if you’re finding this difficult to speak to your healthcare professional let them know how you’re getting on and also ask them to watch you use your turbohaler or if you’re got another inhaler
Ask them to watch you use it that’s the best way to learn how to use the turbohaler or any other inhaler properly because if you’re not using it properly it’s not going to get to the right part of the lungs and it’s not going to give you that adequate control that we want for asthmatics and copd this is the
Most important thing that you need to remember and speaking of other inhalers i do have videos on how to use a metered dose inhaler on how to use an aero chamber which i will leave links to up here interested in them if you have any of them inhalers and you want to become a pro at that as well then click on the links and
Give it storage in terms of cleaning your turbohaler please please please do not get the turbohaler wet remember it’s got that powder in there if you get this wet and the water or any sort of liquid goes on the powder this inhaler is ruined okay so please do not use any water in terms of cleaning you just
Use a cloth two to three times a week just give that tip a quick little clean and then put that cap on always make sure inside the cap is clean as well so there’s no dirt or no fluff or anything like that that you’re gonna put in there and it could possibly go into the mouthpiece now in terms of storage the turbohaler
Is very easy to store you just need to keep it in a cool dry place once you’ve got that lid on cool dry place and make sure it’s not over 30 degrees celsius and always check the expiry date the other thing about the turbohaler i want to mention is when they run out make sure you hand it back to your chemist
Whichever chemist that you got it from or any chemist you can hand it back to them but please also do check if the chemists are part of the recycling scheme because these can be recycled as well so i am going to leave a link to that highly recommend everyone to do this it’s super inhalers they’re plastic they don’t
Degrade and it’s really good for the environment if we are able to recycle these so that’s the end of this week’s video i promised you at the start of the video you are going to become a turbohaler pro let me know if that is true leave a comment below let me know how you found the video let me know if you’ve
Got any questions and let me know if you’ve got any of your own tips because i love reading those comments and i’m sure everyone else watching this video would love to read those comments too get some tips from each other and learn from each other as always sending your awesome vibes and i will see you next week hey
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Transcribed from video
Turbohaler | How To Use A Turbohaler (Symbicort Pulmicort Bricanyl) By AbrahamThePharmacist
