Just over two weeks ago I was discharged from hospital after treatment for pneumonia. I’d previously been on 4.5mg Pred but the A&E doctor increased my dose to 10mg for one week and I went back to 5mg at the end of a week. In the time since I’ve returned home, I have still felt poorly but I realised that it would take a while for me to feel 100% again. However, I still don’t seem to have improved and am wondering whether I really need to increase my dose again?
That apart, I also have a really tight sensation just under the bust line. I checked on line for costacondrosis but this pain goes around the whole of my ribs, feels like a have a really tight band all the way around me. I can still take in a deep breath but my breathing still feels restricted. Tomorrow I’m going to try to get a doctor’s appointment but that will take a couple of days so I thought I’d write and ask whether any other PMR sufferer had had something similar.
Thank you, Jan
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Janann25
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Hi Jan, i had severe pneumonia (on a drip in the Brompton) when I was a very great deal younger and fitter than I am now. I was off work for 3 months. You seem to have been home for two weeks and you already had COPD. I think your lungs are just still unhappy though of course you should see the doc. Have you tried Vick's. i personally think Vick's saved my life. I was at home on prescribed abx and the particular bug I had just laughed at them. That very real, very genuine sensation you can't breathe, like someone's pulled a plug on your life. I staggered to the kitchen and inhaled, coughed, choked, retched, spluttered and breathed. Great improvement on not breathing.
it happened when i was out of hospital and much better too, being too frightened to lie down and go to sleep in case I didn't wake up. At 6 am I poured myself into a cab and went to Kingston A+E - you're under the Brompton, they said. Yes, but you're nearer! Fortunately by then it had passed off and I went home to bed.
With hindsight I have asked myself why I didn't. Delirium is one answer, hallucinating Death standing in the doorway. Also on the second floor, impossibility of getting down to let them in.
Could you have chucked a key out of the window? (On a piece of string if necessary) And time to find someone to have one. At least I only have to get to the flat door - someone would have let them in downstairs.
Find key! Alone in house, not flat. They used to talk, maybe still do, about the pneumonia crisis, whether you lived or died. I think that kind of was it. In the middle of the night I was iller than anyone still with us should be. In the morning I crawled into a cab, now being able to get downstairs, like climbing Everest 6 hours earlier, and made it to RFH where CMB promptly rang her pal Prof Ron DuBois at the Brompton, who hauled me in and histopath later said mycoplasm. Technical note. initial treatment, Erythro, 500 mg qds and Pivampicillin 500 mg od, did I think in a way touch it: caused consolidation to liquefy, like my lungs were flooded
And I'm still very very dim about it! Right now as I sit here I can touch my phone, but my Carelink buzzer is in my desk drawer in the other room and a fat flipping lot of good that is, I know, I know. And I don't carry my phone around the place with me.
I would want an XRay to see what’s going on. You may have hurt your chest muscles with coughing which I have done with a chest infection, unfortunately Pred weakens our muscles. It may be wise to repeat the sick day rules for longer. The X Ray will show whether the Pneumonia is still present and another course of antibiotics is indicated. We don’t bounce back like we used to. Get well soon!
Every bad acute illness, mostly non respiratory , I’ve had I have ended up with chest and diaphragm tightness. Each time I’ve had gentle (!) osteopathy or Bowen therapy and it is like someone releasing my rib cage. If nothing shows up, I’d consider this or a very good physio if you are able. Otherwise, doing breathing /chest expansion via breath exercises at home. Go easy though, they can be quite intense if you are at a low ebb. I think illness can be like a boa constrictor squeezing a bit tighter each time you lose some breath, in that your capacity slowly reduces and that becomes your new set point. A deep breath or chest expansion before the illness is much better than your new post illness one but it feels relatively normal.
I've also just had pneumonia, though not bad enough to be hospitalised, and I get all sorts of chest discomfort. A bra doesn't help. so at the least opportunity, I undo it! Also, anything that requires breathing harder, makes it sore. I also still feel lousy a month after finishng the antibiotics. A GP told me that if you have had pneumonia that shows on a XR you can expect it to be 6 months before you are properly well.
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