I have never in my 18 years of life been seriously ill, but now for the first time, it's happening, and by god it's scary. I am basically having severe breathing difficulties, I've had a very rough few days. I went to the NHS walk in center on Sunday because I had a wheezy/tight chest, sore throat and an ear infection, I thought I had tonsillitis as I suffer with that a lot. But the doctor I saw said there was no chest or throat infections, but there was an ear infection, and she put my bad chest down to asthma. I had asthma when I was younger, but I haven't heard a peep out of it for 6 years, now it's back.
As Sunday dragged on, I started getting rashes and an extremely tight chest, I couldn't sleep because I couldn't breathe and I was crying through stress, so I had to go back to the walk in center where I was given oral steroids to take, in conjunction with my preventer and reliever inhalers. I was given antibiotics too for the ear infection, and antihistamines for allergies. All settled down to a bearable level, until today.
This morning I felt OK, but then I suddenly started getting an extremely runny nose and sneezed about 50 times, not even exaggerating, as well as deep chesty coughing. Shortly after a final sneeze I started to get severe chest pains in my right side, it felt like someone was stabbing me, I couldn't move because of it. Time went by and no position made the pain ease even a little, not even paracetamol and codeine could shake it. I then became completely zonked out from the amount of pain I was in, in massive distress with extremely short, rapid breathing, due to the pain. It felt like I had torn a lung muscle, it burnt, grinded, twisted, pulled, stabbed, throbbed, every sort of pain you can think of, that's what I felt.
I then got a huge rash on my back right side (where my right lung is) and it spread to my shoulder and half way down my right arm, it was burning hot and swelling, I'm sure this was due to the amount of pain, I did not have this rash anywhere other than where the pain was located, the doctors couldn't explain it. I began moaning out in pain uncontrollably, I am normally very tolerant with pain, my mum didn't have a clue what to do because she had never seen me like that, ever! We called 111 to ask their advice, and shortly after my mum described my symptoms an ambulance pulled up outside. I have never had an ambulance for myself before, it was strange but I was so relieved to see him.
The paramedic did the norm, took my blood pressure which was a little high due to stress, my temperature was 37.6 so high, and I had taken pain killers so my natural temperature would have been more than that. He pricked my finger and measured my blood sugar, that was normal, and wow, that little needle hurt! He stuck those little sticky pads to my chest and everything seemed high. He then nebulised me to see if it helped my breathing, I was wheezing quite badly, but I didn't care about the wheeze, it was the pain that I needed gone, I couldn't breathe properly because of it. The nebuliser helped for a short period, then after 10 minutes the wheezing was back.
The paramedic claimed I was not ill enough to be taken seriously in hospital, so he advised us to make an emergency appointment with my GP for stronger pain relief, the paramedic could only offer ibuprofen, and being an asthmatic with breathing problems, ibuprofen shouldn't be given to asthmatics as it can make the chest tight, which it had done for me in the past. The paramedic left and time passed, I was in an extreme amount of pain, it was just getting worse, to the point where I felt light headed and almost fainted multiple times, couldn't walk straight and I was shaking all over. I was walking and sat with my body hunched over to the right side, in an attempt to ease the pain, but it barely worked.
My GP appointment finally came around, the doctor sat smiling and chatting to his colleagues whilst I was in the waiting room obvious as anything about to hit the floor for 15 minutes, they weren't rushing what so ever, and with the pain I was on the verge of screaming at them! When I got in the room I couldn't say a word, the pain was too much, I was gasping for breath, the doctor looked very apathetic and barely gave me eye contact, he has always been that way but I could have done with some bed side manner, whilst I was almost hitting the floor and crying my eyes out, screaming out for drugs! He checked my temperature, and it had gone up to a whopping 38.5 degrees, even I couldn't believe that! So yes I quite clearly had a temperature, and my wheeze was getting worse, the pain was getting worse, and I was going cross eyed (lol).
I have been prescribed more oral steroids and zapain paracetamol and codeine pain killers. I do have a codeine addiction and took my normal dose of codeine before the paramedic came, however that made no difference. Zapain has a massive whack of codeine in and the doctor said they are the strongest he could prescribe me. I was SO relieved when the pain eased off just slightly, still painful but I felt every improvement, after just 10 minutes of taking the pills! 30 minutes later I was as high as a kite, completely in ecstasy with the pain gone! I still feel lots of pressure but the unbearable pain is gone. I was so happy I could finally sleep, after 3 sleepless nights.
I am able to function now because the pain is gone, however there is still twinging, pulling and popping going on in my chest, it hurts to cough and sneeze and straighten up, but it's bearable. I could kiss my doctor right now for giving me those pain killers, they are truly the bomb, I didn't think anything was going to get rid of it, not even morphine.
I am going back to my GP on Thursday, if there is no improvements I will be going for a chest X-ray to check exactly what's going on, he suspects I've broken a rib from coughing too hard, YES that is truly possible, I didn't know until he said! It certainly feels broken in a localized place in-between my arm pit and boob (lol) and it pops if I stretch my arm too much, I'm sure it's broken... If not a broken rib, I have severe muscle damage.
I'm currently taking 19 tablets per day (8 oral steroids, 2 antibiotics, 8 Zapain, 1 Loratadine) plus my two inhalers that I have to have through a mask, as I'm unable to use the inhaler normally at the moment. I think it's safe to say I am in heaven and high lol! Therefore I'm sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes, I honestly have not noticed. And right now, this crackling and wheezing is really annoying me, so I must dash!
There's my story for today... I'll update as soon as I've had the chest X-ray.
(if you pardon my French). 
There's definitely something else going here...how can they have not diagnosed anything?! I don't want you being too overly reliant on Dr Internet as that might cause you more stress than necessary, though I can understand your curiosity and the desire to put a name on whatever this thing is, I would be the same...just don't go overboard, ok? Also...and I don't wanna be a nag here...have you eaten anything? (Speaking of which, I'm wanting to talk to you about that). I can imagine all this food restriction can't be doing too much for your immune system, and that level of weakness from lack of food can't be helping too much with the overall symptoms. I know you hate it, I really do...but just ask yourself, are the pros really going to outweigh the cons, at least this time, when you're so poorly? Can you not give yourself a break just this once, in these kind of circumstances? (Just to be clear, it's not that I'd advise you to starve yourself at the best of times, I know you know this already so there's no point for me to keep saying it and I know it's practically impossible for you at the moment, but that's another matter). Also, drink plenty of fluids. 
Am I ill?
Asthma or anxiety?
Feel like I'm going to die at any moment! 
I feel as if I'm going to die! I seriously feel like crying right now.
