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I've had what appears to be the common cold for just about exactly a month, now. My dysfunctional asthmatic lungs, further irritated by the sub-freezing Boston air, can't kick it out. A week ago, I started trying to damp down the inflammation with my seasonal steroid inhaler. It couldn't keep up, but the only changes in symptoms were progressive exhaustion... and I stopped wheezing. I was initially naive enough to think that was a good thing. Oh so not.
I landed in urgent care Friday morning, with symptoms that were apparently minimal until I started coughing. Things I don't want to hear a doctor say again: "You're not wheezing... Oh. You're not moving enough air to wheeze."
They gave me four rounds on a nebulizer (another way of aerosolizing medication), which turns out to be intensely dislikable. Oh, and a chest X-ray. There aren't words for how happy I am to not also have pneumonia on top of it all. They sent me home with a bottle of prednisone, which is the 'stop that right there!' of steroids for suppressing immune response. I "should" start seeing the positive effects today. Still waiting...
Also got a peak flow meter, the relationship of which to my oximetry readings I'm still trying to figure out.
So far, so good? But God I'm tired.
[ETA 01:49, 2/10/2014 - Prednisone does seem to be having an effect. The little airways are synched up better with the big ones, rather than delayed (and making crackly-bubbly noises) from being nearly closed off as they were before. It's not magic, but it's something.]
I landed in urgent care Friday morning, with symptoms that were apparently minimal until I started coughing. Things I don't want to hear a doctor say again: "You're not wheezing... Oh. You're not moving enough air to wheeze."
They gave me four rounds on a nebulizer (another way of aerosolizing medication), which turns out to be intensely dislikable. Oh, and a chest X-ray. There aren't words for how happy I am to not also have pneumonia on top of it all. They sent me home with a bottle of prednisone, which is the 'stop that right there!' of steroids for suppressing immune response. I "should" start seeing the positive effects today. Still waiting...
Also got a peak flow meter, the relationship of which to my oximetry readings I'm still trying to figure out.
So far, so good? But God I'm tired.
[ETA 01:49, 2/10/2014 - Prednisone does seem to be having an effect. The little airways are synched up better with the big ones, rather than delayed (and making crackly-bubbly noises) from being nearly closed off as they were before. It's not magic, but it's something.]