Update update.

[rivka]

It's "just" my allergies. The unusually spectacular pollen season we've been having has irritated my bronchioles (I think) and swelled them up, and that's why the cough and the trouble breathing. They did a chest X-ray to make sure I didn't have pneumonia, and I didn't. Then they gave me an albuterol treatment, which left me wobbly-kneed but breathing better, and sent me home with a prescription for something called "tesselon perles" for my cough and instructions to drink plenty of fluids and see my primary care doctor.

The drive to the hospital and walk in from the waiting room left me wheezing and coughing badly enough that I jumped the whole line to get seen, which isn't as impressive as it sounds given that it was a suburban community hospital, but did tend to add to scaredness. I hit a really bad feedback loop, where my coughing and wheezing made me scared and then being scared made it harder to breathe. But I think everything should be okay now.

Comments

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Glad everything's okay.

*hugs*

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I'm glad they're finding ways to help. :)

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

That's some great cough medecine.

[jenett]

Meep. Glad you got seen - and yes, the not being able to breathe is scary. (I manage to amuse people by being very quick to be able to name my greatest fear, which is the not being able to breathe thing.)

Two pieces of advice, worth what you paid for them:

1) My mother finds inhaling steam (from a mug of tea, or in the shower) very helpful for lung stuff. I don't, generally. You might see if it helps any, though.

2) The other is that when I start having lung trouble, my rib cage and upper back often start aching (this is probably not surprising.) I find a hot pack helps a lot, or a hot bath.

[ororo.livejournal.com]

2) The other is that when I start having lung trouble, my rib cage and upper back often start aching (this is probably not surprising.) I find a hot pack helps a lot, or a hot bath.

BTDT, when I had a doctor check into it, she told me I'd stretched the cartilage around my ribcage by coughing so much. Heat and anti-inflamatories worked well for me on it.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Interesting... extremes of temperature or moisture in either direction are bad for me when I'm having trouble (I have cough-variant asthma, which means that I don't wheeze but I do get coughing fits, and if they get bad enough, I have trouble breathing.)

rivka, for future reference, a severely asthmatic friend taught me a neat trick. Mint gum, or those very minty Listerine strips, can help to ease a coughing/wheezing attack if the albuterol alone isn't cutting it. My guess is that it has something to do with menthol being a very mild anesthetic.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Menthol is also a decongestant, and a very useful one.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad to hear you're not sick again, though man, that's pretty awful for allergies! I'm sorry it's so bad. Get some rest.

-J

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Much relief that it isn't something worse. Try to rest and take it easy. I've had chronic bronchitis myself and not being able to breathe is awful.

MKK

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Glad it isn't worse, as being unable to breath is bloody well bad enough.

I fondly recall getting those perles during a bout with pneumonia and thinking (at the time) that they were so good they should come in a sixpack.

In hte health food or teas section of your store, if you can find it, there's a tea by traditional Medicinals called Gypsy Cold Care. We go through it like mad during alergy attacks.

Re:

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The Clarinex I'm already taking is actually doing great for my standard allergy symptoms - itching eyes, sneezing, runny nose. That's why the breathing problem is so weird. But yeah, these tesselon perles things are the neatest thing ever. I haven't coughed since I got home from the hospital.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it's something manageable and that you're on the mend. The unable to breathe/fear/even more unable to breathe loop is a nasty one.

*hugs*

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I'm glad they could fix it! Your description sounds pretty much like how I feel during an asthma attack, so you might want to ask your regular doctor if that could be part of the problem. (Except mine is triggered by exercise, not allergies, so I could well be completely wrong.)

Re: *hugs*

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It essentially is asthma, at least for now. Hopefully it won't be a continuing problem.

[ororo.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you aren't coughing now. Allergies seem to be getting nastier and nastier over the years. I've had that feeling of not being able to breathe, and it's frightening. *hugs*

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

I dislike albuterol, it gives me the shakes. Unfortunately on the rare occasions my asthma plays up, it's the very best thing.

I'm glad you're going to be OK, and it's something easily treatable. Hugs offered.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I dislike albuterol, it gives me the shakes.

It gave me the shakes too. I got up out of bed after the nebulizer treatment, and my knees were wobbling so much I had to grab the bedrails and hold on. She told me that was mostly because I wasn't used to it, so I hope it doesn't turn out to be an ongoing thing.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

I think it's only an ongoing thing for me because I only have to use it once a year or so. My body never gets habituated to it, so it never learns to mitigate the side-effects.

I hope things improve for you with time. And soon.

[wandra.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear the treatment is helping, and that you're feeling a bit better.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I am relieved that there is a clear and definite and relatively easily treatable reason for the cough, and that you are treating it and coughing less.

I can sympathize with the hard-to-breathe/fear/harder-to-breathe, as I too had asthma as a child. Given that experience, I can also concur with gwynyth's experience that coughing a lot can cause upper-back, rib, and/or chest pain, and with her experience that a hot soak helps. Given elusis's differing experience that extremes of temperature make things worse, though, I won't actually *recommend* it, if that makes any sense.

I'm glad you're going to feel better soon.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I sure am glad that I saw this post first. Yikes! What a miserable situation for you. I hope you're feeling mostly OK now.

(Yeah, I just got back from Virginia.)

Re:

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I sure am glad that I saw this post first.

Yeah, aren't you just as glad that you missed all the excitement? I hope you had a good time at the wedding.

I hope you're feeling mostly OK now.

Shortness of breath is back, although the medicine is controlling the cough well enough that the shortness of breath isn't severe. I'm going to try to get in to see my doctor first thing tomorrow morning. I'm pretty sure the hospital should've given me an inhaler to take home.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

The wedding was nice, though the wonderful surprise was the hotel we stayed in. Josh and Sarah are now properly wedded and have departed for the sabyritic delights of Ocean City.

I hope your doctor gives you an inhaler tomorrow. I was thinking that since your doctor's call-in service was willing to write you a prescription for one earlier, you might call and ask for one now. Would that work?

Re:

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I'm really okay as long as I sit quietly, don't talk much, and stay inside. I can wait until I can go in for an office visit tomorrow. I have questions I want to ask my doctor anyway, because they didn't do much patient education at the ER.

[ex-helygen254.livejournal.com]

What wcg said about seeing this post first! I'm sorry you've had such a rough weekend too.