time to improvement with Advair 500

Hello, I am new to this forum. I am a veterinary professor involved in animal specialty care. I have suffered from respiratory viral infections-exacerbated chronic cough for several years and have been diagnosed a couple of weeks ago with moderate-to-severe allergic asthma. From recent exacerbations, I suspect that cat allergens are an important source of flares that set off immediate and delayed asthmatic responses.
I started Advair 500 nine days ago and began to decrease the dose of oral prednisone per orders (now on day 20 of pred) andI take cetirizine 10 mg once daily.
My questions are as follows:
1. how long should it take for me to notice some meaningful improvement with noticeable decrease in the use of albuterol?
2. I am still easily set-off by contact with people who own cats... is there anything that I shall do to prevent these acute flares (several a day) while waiting for the Advair to reduce bronchial hyperreactivity?
3. if I cough within 1 min after inhaling albuterol.. does this end up expelling part of the inhaled dose and would explain a reduced duration of efficacy?

[jdrtwin1]

I think it takes some time to see how your body adjust without the pred. I also started 500/50 of advair recently after being on lower doses and slowly being upped. I've also been on prednisone for several months and am finaly tapering down, we should see results soon I guess.