playing doctor
Oct. 26th, 2006 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wendyzski(not THAT kind. You're nasty.)
I went for a follow-up to Perky-Doc last night. While the infection is gone, I'm still having no end of trouble with gooey coughing and asthma attacks. I've been having severe ones morning and evening on my commute - combination of the cold air and climbing the stairs has me couging so bad that I sweat and tear and people are afraid to sit next to me on the train because I have some kind of plague. I've also been waking up choking between 2 and 3AM - presumably when something runs out of my system.
She is tweaking my medication regimen a bit - we're dropping the Pulmicort (inhaled steriod) in favor of a different one calles Asmanex, and we're adding another inhaler called Spiriva. I'm still doing a bit of research on them, but I am slightly better this morning - not sure if it's the new meds or ongoing healing. I have samples for about 2 weeks and she wants me to call her in a week to see if we'll keep this regimen for a while.
The Spiriva is a powder capsule that you peel out of a pack, pop in an inhaler, close the inhaler, press a button to puncture the capsule, breathe, then open the inhaler and discard the capsule. I've already lost one of the stoopid capsule-things down the toilet!
But the scariest part - looking up Spiriva online, I find no mention of asthma. It is designed to treat COPD. I have been concerned that my asthma was getting worse, but the idea that it is shading into official COPD is a but of a slap. My family history is that of high cholesterol and mild allergies - I got the short end of the genetic stick. The men in our family have their first heart attacks in their 50s but with treatment can do ok for years afterwards. The women get annoyingly sick but nothing serious until they just plain wear out and die at 84 or so. But me - it's getting more and more likely that I'll die by choking or drowning in my own lung-goo long before then. It's a scary thing to think about.
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tarsa, I know you have been having trouble getting access to your asthma meds because of lack on insurance. I now have 2 Pulmicort inhalters that I am not using, and one is brand new (I refilled my mail-order stuff last week - grrrr). I also have a couple of extra albuterol inhalers (since we're switching to a diff formulation). Are these something you could use?
I went for a follow-up to Perky-Doc last night. While the infection is gone, I'm still having no end of trouble with gooey coughing and asthma attacks. I've been having severe ones morning and evening on my commute - combination of the cold air and climbing the stairs has me couging so bad that I sweat and tear and people are afraid to sit next to me on the train because I have some kind of plague. I've also been waking up choking between 2 and 3AM - presumably when something runs out of my system.
She is tweaking my medication regimen a bit - we're dropping the Pulmicort (inhaled steriod) in favor of a different one calles Asmanex, and we're adding another inhaler called Spiriva. I'm still doing a bit of research on them, but I am slightly better this morning - not sure if it's the new meds or ongoing healing. I have samples for about 2 weeks and she wants me to call her in a week to see if we'll keep this regimen for a while.
The Spiriva is a powder capsule that you peel out of a pack, pop in an inhaler, close the inhaler, press a button to puncture the capsule, breathe, then open the inhaler and discard the capsule. I've already lost one of the stoopid capsule-things down the toilet!
But the scariest part - looking up Spiriva online, I find no mention of asthma. It is designed to treat COPD. I have been concerned that my asthma was getting worse, but the idea that it is shading into official COPD is a but of a slap. My family history is that of high cholesterol and mild allergies - I got the short end of the genetic stick. The men in our family have their first heart attacks in their 50s but with treatment can do ok for years afterwards. The women get annoyingly sick but nothing serious until they just plain wear out and die at 84 or so. But me - it's getting more and more likely that I'll die by choking or drowning in my own lung-goo long before then. It's a scary thing to think about.
tarsa, I know you have been having trouble getting access to your asthma meds because of lack on insurance. I now have 2 Pulmicort inhalters that I am not using, and one is brand new (I refilled my mail-order stuff last week - grrrr). I also have a couple of extra albuterol inhalers (since we're switching to a diff formulation). Are these something you could use?
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-03 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-03 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-03 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 04:05 pm (UTC)I don't know about Asmanex -- never been on it.
I am on some other inhalers, but the other wonder drugs that really help me are Singulair and the new Xopenez inhaler. I take Xopenex in the nebulizer too, but this is in inhaler form (non-shakey albuterol stuff). Good stuff.
(((hugs)))
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Date: 2006-10-26 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 04:29 pm (UTC)Primarily, doc wants me to start taking a hit in the evening to avoid waking up to cough, and I'm a bit concerned that albuterol may cause me problems in getting to sleep. Just not sure if the extra copay is worth it or if I can get by just fine on the standard albuterol, maybe taking it earlier in the evening or something. She wrote me a script for the new one in case I want to try it, but I'm still in the "doing homework" stage.