My symptoms have been getting steadily worse over the last few days again. I keep thinking I really am OK (lying through my teeth! LOL). I just feel so ill and have done for weeks. Cold, Asthma triggered, Sinusitis, Asthma triggered again, Steroids, nebuliser, it goes on and on. The only way I can describe it is it being like having stood in the middle of the motorway and being hit by a 10 ton lorry at 70MPH straight into my chest! I ache all over, my chest hurts to move/breath etc and yesteday when i started to feel a bit better i thought yey and then last night went down hill quickly, coughing so bad i was gagging and nearly being sick I hate being ill. the out of hours doctor this morning has said i haven't got a chest infection which is good cos I'm not good with antibiotics (allergic to five at the last count). He said he thinks its all asthma related and has put me back on the steroid tabs and doubled the ventolin dose in the nebuliser also he's given me codeine cough linctus to take and try to stop the coughing a bit and told me to carry on with my brown inhaler too. I feel like a walking drug shop. I'm not too bad if i stay completely upright but if i try to lay down the coughing starts. I haven't slept for days and I'm supposed to be going back to work tomorrow.
Any advice, support, ideas, things to make me smile again and take my mind off feeling sorry for myself would be really appreciated right now.
I am sorry that you are having such a rough time of it at the moment
I do hope things start to improve for you soon
Aww hugs from me. You sound like you're in a rubbish place and it was a place I was in for a while. I note your profile says 'diagnosed at last' - took me a while too, about 2 years of not being listened to by consultants and it was so frustrating to feel completely rubbish and be told there was nothing wrong with me, and not be able to make them understand how much it messes up your life! So I think I really do understand where you're coming from as do many on here with more severe asthma - and I'm still not sorted so still getting that frustration. Aargghghhh asthma! And it's very hard to ignore especially if you're coughing - I think my family think I'm obsessed with it and maybe I am, but how can you ignore it when it goes beyond a couple of puffs of preventer a day? And sinusitis on top as well sounds nasty.
If I think of a distraction (other than this forum which has kept me sane throughout) I will let you know!
It sounds like you've moved on well past what it says on your profile medication-wise! If you aren't controlled with all those steroids and nebulisers I would have thought it's high time you asked for a referral to a consultant. Check out the BTS guidelines (they're on here I think) but it sounds like you must be on step 4/5 and not controlled - as you can point out to your GP if s/he resists. Is your GP good? It does help to have a good one even if you do get referred so if you're frustrated with GP as well maybe worth finding another one? If they are good I would go to them again, explain all this and say you would like a referral as it's really interfering with your life.
Just wondering also - does any of it work at all? I found it was a lot of trial and error with me. I'm still far from being there but I do have some idea of what works and what doesn't - and what sort of thing works (ie, for me, not steroids and not most LABAs; montelukast definitely works, Intal fairly well).
Oh, just remembered - think I posted this elsewhere as someone told me: you can get used to Ventolin if you take a lot. It never worked that well for me anyway and really doesn't now. Atrovent is slightly more slow-acting but I and several others on here have found it very effective - don't let them tell you it's just for old ladies with COPD! I've found several of the old 'ineffective' pre-steroid meds much better. And have you tried Bricanyl as a fast-acting reliever? That worked for me when I was younger, better than Ventolin.
OK, this is really long, sorry, hope some of it is vaguely useful. btw I like your name! I had (still have somewhere) a Steiff bear called Griselda that I was given as a baby, but my older brother was obsessed with her as soon as she arrived and kept stealing her!
really sorry to hear you are feeling so grim at the moment. For what it's worth (and I'm not the one with asthma, it's my daughter fairly recently diagnosed) we have found that the best chair to sleep in is the really common quite cheap sort you can get from Ikea, which is a sort of s-bend style, with some fairly thinly-padded upholstery over a wooden frame. It leans back just enough that you can rest in it, & if you prop your feet up on another chair in front, wrap a blanket around yourself, it's better than being in bed with a mound of pillows cramping your neck & getting up your nose. Might be worth a try, as I know the wearing cough when lying down is just so terrible both for the sufferer & the rest of the family listening.
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