Thank you, Broomstick! You’re my friend for life now (meaning, I expect you to come over and cook for me whenever I’m sick from now on! )
Doc gave me trazadone to help with sleep. It helps somewhat, sometimes. It does nothing to reduce coughing, and if I’m coughing badly, then I can’t sleep no matter how trazadone-drowsy I might be – in that case, it’s just all the more uncomfortable to be drowsier and not be able to sleep. Monday night was really bad that way. But the last two nights, with coughing a little more under control, I found the trazadone helped me sleep a little better. I think.
Every time I get a bronchitis attack like this, that’s exactly what I’m terrified might happen – that it might stall out and regress at any time! And I don’t have a back-up plan, really. The best I can think of now, is that I’ve discovered the value of breathing steam, so I always have at least that – I never need to get an Rx or go out shopping in the rain to get it.
The real plan I want to get started, beginning once this case clears up, is to get into long-term / on-going maintenance with my doctor (actually, with my HMO as they have it all in-house), so there WILL be always a plan in place. I want the option, whenever this begins again, to get started with aggressive intervention promptly, instead of the usual suggestion to go home and rest up for another week first and see if it clears up on its own.
I was referring to the second course of prednisone as a backup plan, but I can see how that doesn’t really fit. In any case, I think you’re long term plan makes a lot of sense, too. Preventative maintenance, such as it is. I’d hope that an HMO would be on board with that, and can help you make it work.
I’ve just started a short course of oral prednisone for a possibly herniated disk, and it’s doing wonders. No pain, and restored mobility. The doctors ran me through a course of Medrol first, but that did relatively little for me, and it made my stomach sick. So far, the prednisone is having no side effects.
Well, I’ve made it through the end of Saturday. I’d say I’m feeling 80% better by now. I’m not coughing very much any more. This has happened vastly faster in the last week (that is, since I started using all these meds) than in my previous episodes, which all dragged on much longer and worse.
So I’m going to conclude that the prednisone is in fact the miracle drug that everyone above has been saying it is! (This thread was about prednisone, remember? ) I think that, and breathing steam, have been the major helps here. I’m a little less sure about all that albuterol I’ve been sucking up.
Major breakthrough: Last night, for the first time in 2 weeks, I was able to lie down (for an extended period of time even) without starting up with the coughing again, and thus was able to get some reasonable semblance of a night’s sleep. I am hoping to repeat that tonight.
Saturday was my last prednisone pill. So I’ll be watching, for the next two days, for any signs of relapse. If so, I have another Rx of prednisone I can start – but I’m hoping that won’t be necessary.
Thanks greatly, everybody, for all the advice and information.
And reminder for Auntie Pam and Broomstick: From now on, when I get sick, you get to cook for me! I won’t forget!
The only way this is going to happen is if Senegoid can develop an actual long-term relationship with one doctor. Otherwise, it’s just going to be rinse and repeat. He’ll get another bout of bronchitis and no matter how much he relates his medical history the doc will just fall back on the standard send them home for a week and see if it gets better. I find it to be EXTREMELY rare that a doctor will give any weight to my own life experience regarding my health on first encounter.
Fortunately, I have (I think) a PCP who’s pretty good. To be sure, he may not have taken my tales of chronic bronchitis very seriously before now, having not seen it himself. Now he has, and I think he just might take it more seriously now. I’ve already mentioned to him that I’d like to get into longer-term management for this, once the current episode settles down better. He seemed to be cool with that idea.
Of course, he might not be so much involved himself – he’s a general practitioner. I’m hoping he’ll send me off to the pulmonology department for a more fuller examination. If there’s any real pulmonary management to be done, I suppose that’s where it would happen.
I’m feeling substantially better today. Continued coughing seems down to residual levels, mostly. I’m out of prednisone now, so I’ll be watching for any sign of relapse in the next few days.
One bothersome lingering effect: I mentioned a few times that I coughed so much that I strained a bunch of abdominal muscles. Those are mostly recovering now. Except in one particular spot, it’s getting even more sore. I’m having trouble doing just about anything (including sleeping and some breathing difficulty) just due to the soreness in that one area. I’m taking it utterly as easy as possible now, hoping that will start to recover RSN.
ETA: By the way, PastTense just started a thread asking for common cold remedies – one of the issues there being that even a minor cold can blow up into a major bronchitis, and how to nip it in the bud. To whom it may constern, that thread may be of interest too.
A bit late to the party on this one. Be careful with nsaids - they can affect kidney function.
And keep an eye on your heartrate. That is one side-effect of prednisone I encountered personally when I had to take a sudden large dose of it for poison ivy too close to my eyes.
Every time I go on a five-day Prednisone bender I feel like I’m twenty years younger. The problem is that on the sixth day I wake up feeling like I’ve been run over by a bus.
I think it’s the Tenniel drawing – I’m not going to be in the office again till Monday – but it’s a classic line drawing of the scene you describe.
So, about what life comes to, I should say that I have chronic bronchitis that is active a few months per year. I get sick somewhere around Thanksgiving or Christmas and recover by February or so, and get sick in May and recover in July. I typically have more months without active bronchitis than with. And it isn’t COPD (though it seems to me the definition of COPD keeps drifting over the decades). I don’t have any pulmonary problems other than the bronchitis. I see two pulmonologists and an ENT and used to see allergists till the allergies tested all gone, and we’ve made some changes over the last ten years that have improved things.
There have been years when I have become obsessively focused mainly on exercise, and I get into much better shape, and the bronchitis is way better then. But, this is at the cost of spending my time and attention on people I love, and also at the cost of minding my career, and those are pretty tough things to let go of that much. It’s an ugly choice. Besides, obsessions are hard things to switch on and off just because it’d be some kind of strategic advantage.
Yes, chronic disease really really really sucks. It can get way worse than we are describing, and even this is depressing. Life can be brutish and short. I think a good way of expressing it is that most of us have at least one kind of problem that makes us crazy in a way, and so this becomes one of those.
I found a scholarly article on-line with a title something like “Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: The Last Year of Life” :eek: describing palliative hospice treatment for end-stage COPD. <<shudder>> I only skimmed the first couple pages. NOT what I needed to be reading while gasping and coughing my innards outward. If you or anyone really really think you want to read this, let me know and I’ll post the link (PDF).
As for me, I’m substantially recovered now; thank you all for your advice and keeping me company. I didn’t note any side-effects at all from the prednisone. I haven’t needed the second Rx my doc gave me – I’m going to hang onto that for another day. However, I’ve been feeling thoroughly exhausted for the last 6 days. I assumed this is from coughing myself to exhaustion the two weeks before, plus hardly sleeping at all, plus hardly eating well. But various posts above (the one by Obnoxious Hood Ornament for example) suggest this could be an after-effect of stopping the prednisone? Anyway, I’m gradually getting over that too.
I have chronic bronchitis that’s almost always there, but almost always mild enough not to be much of a bother – except for the occasional blow-ups like this. I live in fear that this may get progressively worse by-and-by.
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I’d hope that an HMO would be on board with that, and can help you make it work.
) I think that, and breathing steam, have been the major helps here. I’m a little less sure about all that albuterol I’ve been sucking up.