Venting for a moment...(warning this is long)

I feel so bad whinging here, as I know many of the members here have much much more severe asthma than what I've got.

I caught a cold a week ago, started with a sore throught on Monday, Tues the runny nose, no fever just slightly elevated ( 37.5-37.7). Wednesday morning I had increasing asthma symptoms, needing ventolin mdi every 1-2 hrs all while driving 1 1/2 hrs to hand in a uni assignment. Got home, still no good, using nebs by this time, a little bit more relief. Anyway, I called my Dad, he was @ work to ask if he could take me to hospita.

Only waited 10-15 mins, some wheezes (not a lot), o2 sats where brilliant as usually. I got 3 nebs of ventolin + atrovent, 40mg of prednisolone (note I only weigh 44 ... have lost 3 kilos in a month, unintentional of course!). Fine after that, well sort of peak flow was 280 (best 510 but that was at least 2-4yrs ago and after 2 weeks of high dose pred).

So I got to go home after telling the dr I felt ""a little bit better"". Rested, watched movies at home, worsened again over the night. Cut a long story short, had to go back to hospital late Thursday morning (by ambulance), got regular ventolin/atrovent nebs (lost count) , hydrocortisone (?mg), + heparin apparently the dr wanted me on that while I was in hospital to prevent clots. Agh, felt so offended by that - it's like he was treating me like an elderly pt (I'm a 23 y/o otherwise very healthy young adult, clots pfftt).

Anyway, being the healthy thing that I am I recovered rapidly and went home yesterday. Had no fevers during the night, back to normal 36.8-37.2), had pfts before going home FEV1 was 81%, MMEF 33%, PEF 89% and FER 77% (I think FER could also be FEV/FVC%). Notsure of my post bronchodilator numbers, all I know is the fev1 decreased by 10% and the FVC decreased by 4%. Dr's notes put it down to fatigue.

I got sent home yesterday as the lung dr's where happy with my pfts said they were ""quite good"". Whether quite good means given the situation or good b/c they're good. Though I have in the past blown numbers in the high 90% and sometimes 100%.

Today I woke up with severe muslce cramps/pain, some sob, fever that has since gone from 37.3C - 38.8C in a couple of hrs, my cough is worse, chest pain with coughing and just generally feeling quite ill /nausea (feel sort of okay now had a codral). Don't know my peak flow b/c I can't do it properly without going into a fit of coughing. I think it might be the flu, not sure, whatever it is I'm glad I'm on pred, least my asthma should remain stable.

Thanks for letting me vent,

~Carly.

p.s. please excuse any spelling errors.............

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Sorry to hear that you are strugling. I hope that you will feel better soon. I just wanted to say that there is no need to be offended regarding heparin. Age is just one risk factor and people who are immobilized in bed for a long time when ill are at risk regardless how young they are. Heparin seems to be maybe a bit much, maybe there were some other risk factors that prompted your doctor to prescribe it. You can always ask questions when you are given medication that you are not entarily happy with.