Alright, for the past week I’ve had a cough-but it’s not your typical cough; at least not in my opinion.
The cough itself only hits me maybe once a day-if that, but when it does it scares me. It’s not painful, but when I cough I can’t catch my breath afterwords. I gasp and wheeze small amounts of air. This goes on for a minute or two (although it feels like an hour). Sometimes it seems as though I can only breath normally if I force myself to cough (a small cough) again. Afterwords I have to clear my throat for the next hour.
I normally would go to the doctor’s but I’m temping at a new job and I won’t have health insurance for a while.
Has anyone heard of something like this before?
Some additional things: My wife had/has bronchitus (sp?) and is coughing regularly. Her coughs give her a lot of pain, whereas mine do not. In addition, she doesn’t gasp for air, she just coughs for an extended period of time. Also, I’m not running a fever and I feel fine, apart from the time I’m coughing-which as I’ve said is not a frequent event.
IANAD but does anybody in your family have asthma? It tends to run in families and that’s what it kinda sounds like, what with the wheezing and shortness of breath.
Are you a smoker?
Bringing up anything (blood, gunge)?
Does anything seem to trigger the cough?
Anything make it better?
Have you been exposed to anything new recently? Pollen, dust, animal hair, cleaning products, paint fumes?
It sounds more like an asthma attack than a cough, you should get this checked out ASAP. Is there a free clinic or something you can go to?
I had one major asthma attack that was triggered by some mould in an old house I was staying in, started off as just wheezy and sneezy, ended up unable to draw breath, has never happened to me since, although I carry an inhaler, just in case.
Could something at the new job be setting you off? If you already have mild asthma you’re probably more sensitive to dust/spores/hair/chemicals/fumes than you realise.
I’m not a smoker, but my wife is: I’ve been with her for 5 years.
I’m not coughing up anything noticable; although I do have to clear my throat for a significant amount of time after the cough.
Nothing I can think of triggers the cough, and nothing makes it better except to ‘cough’ again while I’m wheezing.
I can’t think of anything I’ve exposed to recentally that’s new. It’s been raining in my area (VA) for a bit while I had the coughs, and although I do have cats, I’ve been around them for 8+ years.
There is a clinic near where I live that I’m thinking about going to tomorrow; but I sort of want to be prepared.
Here’s the thing; I did start a new job recentally, but I had a (I guess) regular variety cough before the bad cough started. This cough wasn’t anything special and only bothered me maybe two days.
Something at my new job could be setting it off, but my attacks haven’t happened there, they’ve happened primarily at my house and in my car. I’ve had one incident at my new job though.
I don’t think you’ll get a diagnosis here. It could be nothing, it could be serious. If you aren’t feeling poorly (except for the cough) that’s encouraging but does not rule out badness. I’d see a doc.
Yeah, I realize that the best thing to do is to see a doc, which I’ll do tomorrow; but I’m sort of fishing to see if anything is going around, if anyone has any symptoms similar to this, etc. Maybe it’s just to ease my troubled mind or what not.
Helpless coughing where you can’t get your breath; that’s one of the most common asthma symptoms. As for “why now,” it could be that tree pollen is one of your triggers. It sure is for me, and right now, the trees are kicking my pitiful butt around the block.
Seems like the general consensus is that my problem is probably asthmatic; but could it be Tuberculousus or Bronchitius?
I talked to my reactionary father and he said that it could be anything from TB, Asthma, Bronchitius, to cancer…My father isn’t a doctor anything, so I take what he says we a pound of salt…
Yep could be something nasty. Odds are isn’t not, but that’s why you need to go to the doctor.
I developed a bad, kinda asthmatic cough, went to the doc - allergies and irritated bronchia, a shot and an inhaler and all is better.
My aunt, same symptoms went to the doc - lung cancer. But she never smoked, but she lived with a 3-pack a day smoker for 40 years. And she’s 80. And has survived breast cancer.
Bottom line, probably nothing - but go to the doctor. At least you’ll be able to tell your Dad to back off a little.
Well, I went to the doctor’s and he said that I probably had a touch of bronchitius. I’m thinking, if this is a ‘touch’ then what would happen if I got a full case of bronchitius?
In any event, he gave me some antibiotics, an inhaler (anterbuterol, IIRC) and a breathing treatment where I breathed the anterbuterol (sp?) for 5 minutes. I felt fine, until this morning, when I went to my car and had a coughing/gasping/gagging fit for about 3 minutes.
I know the man has an MD, but are my symptoms common among people with bronchitius? My wife has a worse case of bronchitius and doesn’t gasp as I do.
