Beastie Yeasties

Budding Yeast cells

I feel so Blah this week. I keep telling myself I only have 3 weeks of clinicals left. That thought is what is getting me through.

I'm on Advair for my asthma. It's a combination drug with Fluticasone, a corticosteroid and Salmeterol, a bronchodilator. For the most part it works, I actually get wheezy when it's wearing off. As long as the pollens aren't too high, I rarely have to use my albuterol rescue inhaler.

Here's my problem.

Advair is actually a powder inhaler and so when you take a "puff" some of the medicine sticks to the back of my soft palate. Since 1/2 of it is a steroid, it creates a very happy environment for yeast (which is naturally a part of the environment or flora). Thus creating the condition of Mucosal Candidiasis aka "Thrush". I have it again this week for about the 7th time this year.
Originally, I started out being half-assed about rinsing my mouth after. After the second time I was religious about it. After the 3rd or 4th time I started using Listerine to rinse after.

Every occurrence I took all my medication to get rid of it. My doctor isn't worried and says it's a common side effect of Advair and she says maybe I'm just more suscepible to it. My doctor's colleague, a PA, tested me for Diabetes and HIV, just to rule those out. (Thrush is common in both those conditions)
Thankfully (I wasn't worried) those tests were negative.
It's just really annoying and the only medicine that works for my thrush is Clotrimazole FIVE times a day for TWO WEEKS.

That means I have to take medicine with me to school and work. It's a lozenge type "Troche" and I have to hide the fact that it's in my mouth at clinicals. It's just kind of embarrassing ya know?

Any other asthmatics have this problem? Is there an equivalent med on the market that works just as well?
I was just diagnosed 2 years ago and Advair and Singulair is all I've ever used.

Listening to: "Only the good die young" Billy Joel