(no subject)

[rivka]

Okay, my doctor just scared the hell out of me.

My cough has gotten abruptly worse over the last couple of days. I'm feeling like I just can't catch my breath - it's scarily reminiscent of the beginning of the serious bout with reactive airway disease I had in 2003, the one that sent me to the ER and had me doing nebulizer treatments at home.

Yesterday at dinner I made noises about "if I'm not better by Monday...", and Michael just gave me a look. By bedtime, I could no longer argue with him about whether I was going to go to work today or stay home and see the doctor. By this afternoon, I had to ask him to drive me to the doctor, because I was feeling so lightheaded.

So we went to my doctor together. My peak flow (a measure of how well I can blow out air) is 275. Normal for my age and height looks like it's close to 500. She changed my antibiotic. She prescribed an albuterol inhaler and a course of steroids to open up my airway. And (this was the part that seriously alarmed me) she told us that if my breathing worsened at all over the weekend that I shouldn't play games - I should go straight to the hospital.

Yikes.

Comments

[platypus]

Yikes! Yes, breathing is not something to mess about with. Although the age/height norms need to be taken with a pretty large grain of salt, 275 is pretty low for anybody. My own norm is a fair bit higher than predicted for my age and height, and I've had to deal with a doctor saying that I seemed to be doing "pretty good" while I was having an asthma attack that dropped me to below 75% of normal. I was not feeling "pretty good."