Essay Ally

Well, I said after my first post that I’d put something educational here soon.  But clearly I don’t have anything put together.  And right now my following is so small, that it probably doesn’t matter what I put here.

I am sitting in bed right now slowly suffocating.  Ever since I lived in California, I have had a weird respiratory problem two or three times a year.  I lose the ability to inhale a full breath of air, with the exception of an occasional yawn.  The doctors of course are dismissive because it is clearly not an acute asthma attack, my peak flow tests are virtually normal.  It does not appear to be allergies, as I can breath through my nose just fine, I have virtually no flem in my throat and I have been pounding all sorts of allergy medication every time this happens with absolutely no luck.

This time the problem started while I was out in California for work.  It has been going on for a week but I moved recently and I don’t have a doctor yet in the area so I have been hoping and waiting for it to pass.  I’ll give you a list of symptoms, diagnoses, and various treatments I have tried and you can make all sorts of morbid diagnosis.

Symptoms I have:

Shortness of breath
Inability to inhale completely
Mild chest pain (lower ribcage area)

Symptoms I don’t have:

Constricted airways
Mucus in throat, nose
Fever
Hyperventilating

Possible diagnoses:

Cough Variant Asthma
Why it could be: I have never had great luck with allergies and respiratory problems, I have had several nasty bouts with bronchitis and frequent allergy problems
Why it doesn’t seem to be: Albuterol inhaler doesn’t work, Singulaire doesn’t prevent or stop, Azmacort inhaler doesn’t seem to help cure it, peak flow tests are normal

Heart problem
Why it could be: heart problems can prevent themselves intermittently and shortness of breath could be due to an o2 deficiency
Why it doesn’t seem to be:  I’ve had my heart looked at numerous times, I can run just fine when I’m like this (well really no worse than I ever did run, which wasn’t too well).

Pleurisy:
Why it could be:  This is a new diagnosis for me.  Apparently a lot of people on the internet complain of a similar problem.  This is basically a swelling of the lining inside your lungs which could be caused by numerous things including physical stress, allergies, asthma, and various infections, it can be intermittent, spring up without warning, and while no other medications had an obvious quick effect on my symptoms, high dose oral steroids, used primarily for treating inflammation, did seem to make it go away last time.
Why it might not be:  Since I have not gone to the doctor every time this has happened, it seems to be that the steroids may not have done anything at all, it may have just gone away on its own.

Anyway, now that I have three likely candidates, I’ll tell you that right now I’m leading toward Pleurisy caused either by poor air in California and subsequent allergy/asthma problems, or due to physical stress from exerting myself after being physically inactive for a long time.

Now as a retort to people who are going to call me a hypochondriac, I have really bad luck when it comes to ailments.  I got Lyme Disease last summer and couldn’t do anything physical for 2 months.  I was on antibiotics for what seemed like forever.  Now Lyme isn’t all that uncommon in Maryland, but I was one of those lucky people that didn’t show a rash, so I had to constantly hound the doctor before they’d do a blood test.

I’ve also had food poisoning twice, mono-like viruses multiple times, and all sorts of other weird viral problems.  The funniest part is I rarely get colds and haven’t had the flu in years.  It’s not that I have a terrible immune system, I just always seem to be putting myself out there in a manner that makes me vulnerable to this sort of thing.  Call it a high stress lifestyle if you want.  I’m still here, I’m still functioning, and I’m pretty pissed with medical care and expenses in this country, so maybe I’ll just go back to self-diagnoses.

Ok, so now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s a list of drugs and treatments I’ve tried:

1. Benadryl - makes me drowsy so I can sleep despite the suffocation feeling , doesn’t do anything
2. Prednisone  (oral) - seemed to do the trick in high doses, but have to try again to verify that it wasn’t just a fluke the last time
3. Aspirin - anti-inflammatory, hard to tell if this dose anything, but it does remove the mildy aching feeling in my chest
4. Ibuprofen - same as above
5. Albuterol (inhaler) - doesn’t seem to do anything
6. Azmacort (inhaler) - doesn’t seem to do anything
7. Singulaire - This gives me the most amazing dreams and night terrors.  I am a vivid dreamer anyway, but this stuff sets me over the edge.  Sometimes I scream in my sleep on it.  It doesn’t seem to help with the breathing issue.
8. Dietary changes - I tried cutting out nuts, dairy, wheat, non-organic, etc.. things from my diet at various times, makes no bit of different though.  Of course the diet changes help other things.
9. Weight changes - I had this condition  when I was  about 60 lbs overweight, and I have  it now that I am completely normal.
10. Hot tea - helps a bit, maybe, but makes me feel cozy, so who knows
11 Cold Air - seems to help for a bit, then makes it worse.  Any change in temperature or humidity level momentarily seems to distract me, but doesn’t seem to change it for the long term
12. Sleep - I always feel better in the morning, either because of the state of sleep giving my body time to recover, or the reclined position making it easier on my lungs/heart somehow

So now that I’ve ranted about my current health problem and given you the information the real doctors had, go for your own diagnoses.  If I ever come to a real resolution, I’ll let you know.