Asthma & Ibuprofen

Nursing Students Student Assist

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Specializes in Infusion, Med/Surg/Tele, Outpatient.

Differing Drug Guide opinions -- Is Asthma a contraindication to Ibuprofen? My Drug guides state that the Aspirin triad [asthma, nasal polyps, aspirin allergy] is a contraindication for ibuprofen therapy. Another student's guide states that asthma is a contraindication. Would you give ibuprofen to an asthmatic with juvenile arthritis?

Thanks!

All NSAIDs can trigger an asthma attack.

I would not. The doctor needs to prescribe a non-NSAID anti-inflammatory. If one exists.

Specializes in Cardiac.

Before I started trying to have a baby, I was taking ibuprofen all the time. I've had asthma for a while now and never had any exacerbations with it.

For the J. arthritis, you would be giving high dose ibuprofen around the clock if it was being given for the arthritis. Hopefully, this isn't the case. Hopefully, they were on Celebrex or something. I'd be more worried about thier stomachs and kidneys than asthma if they were receiving the high dose ibuprofen(~2g/day). (I'd also worry about SJS, but that's a different story)

As far as a non-NSAID-that's prednisone.

Specializes in NICU,PICU, community ADL assessment.,.

ibuprofen is really C/I in asthma- too much pharmacology to explain, but...:

it's a non selective cox inhibitor, and the same cox (the enzyme, if you remember the vioxx case-also about cox-inh), are involved in the asthma reaction...

so if you take any cox- inh, espec. non-selective- be careful with your asthma!

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