OK...I haven't posted for awhile. Things have been pretty hectic for me! I have been once again struck down by a simple virus that everyone around me just bounced right through...but for me...it turns into bronchitis this time! So I am on the finishing rounds of antibiotics, steroids, combination Ipratropium Bromide and Albuterol nebulizer breathing treatments along with my other normal asthma meds to boot!!
Needless to say I have got to get this asthma under control! My doctor, for now, has prescribed me a stronger level of Advair, which I take daily, for me to use whenever I am beginning to come down with a virus in the hopes of that along with breathing treatments will allow my own immunity to keep my lungs from becoming infected again. Apparently I am ridding myself of the virus just fine but my poor working lungs don't survive without an infection.
The cause of all my troubles?? Well you can guess that from the title. I was brought up in a household with a smoker who smoked inside and in our car all the while when I was growing up. Then my first husband also smoked inside...until I had my first daughter at 25 and booted him out to do his nasty habit.
So here I am, never have puffed a single cigarette, but stuck battling the results of poor functioning lungs due to second hand smoke damage.
I wasn't diagnosed with my asthma until I was 23 years old..as it was not a condition I was born with but rather one that took years of exposure to develop. The good news is it is not hereditary so my children should be fine.
So I will be seeking out a specialist and a treatment regimen that works better for me. I know several people who suffer this disease and fair much better than I do even though their lung capacity is much worse so I know there is help out there. I just don't think the family practitioner that I am relying on now to help me can offer the best there is for me. My asthma has become a big obstacle for me, but one that I am determined to overcome. I am going to schedule myself an appointment with a good pulmonologist and see what other options and treatments are available to me.
1 comment:
Karen, I am so feelin' ya on this! I'm still fighting a couch, and am beginning to wonder if it is my mother's smoking all those years ago catching up with ME! She quit 20+ years ago, but not until after I had married and left the house...so my lungs got their fill, too, of second hand smoke! It's awful, and to this day, the smell of smoke makes me gag!
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