Sicker than I thought

 By the time I woke up this morning, the congestion had spread to my chest, and I was wheezing badly and short of breath. Otherwise, I felt ok, no fever or anything, so I went to work but called my allergist as soon as the office opened. The nurse (bless her!) said, "Hold on a minute, let me go talk to Dr. Stone" and when she came back said, "Can you be here at 10:00?" I said sure and told my principal I needed to leave for a little while to go to the doctor. 

When I got there, Dr. Stone said the nurse could hear in my voice how badly I was wheezing. They did a spirometry test to measure my lung function (it's the one where you take a deep breath, and then blow out as hard and as fast as you can into a tube). Well, turns out that my lung function was only 42% of normal.

Dr. Stone said it's the worst result I've ever had on one of those tests. 

In fact, he turned to the young resident doctor accompanying him today and said, "This says to me that her lung function has been deteriorating for a while. If she'd had normal function up until today and you flipped a switch and turned it down to only 42%, she wouldn't have been able to walk in here or talk without gasping for air. She's obviously been compensating for reduced function for a while so didn't notice until it got really bad." He gave me two breathing treatments and a large dose of prednisone on the spot and made me take two more spirometry readings before he was satisfied that I was okay and let me leave. He said I could easily have ended up in the hospital. 

He's putting me back on some stronger asthma meds (that I had discontinued last year), two weeks of prednisone, and an antibiotic just to cover all the bases. He wants to see me back in three months and said to come immediately if I had any more exacerbations in the meantime. He also said that I probably had never really recovered completely from being sick last month. My regular doctor had seen me and just gave me three days' worth of prednisone since my only real symptom had been congestion and wheezing. (I had tested negative for Covid, strep, and flu so she thought it was a regular cold). In the future, I'll go see Dr. Stone for any issues like that, since a GP obviously isn't an asthma specialist and isn't the right doctor to see in those circumstances. I asked today if I needed a flu and/or Covid test; he said that if it's flu (unlikely) that I've had symptoms for several days and Tamiflu wouldn't work now anyway, and that I could take an at-home Covid test if I was curious, but that there wasn't much they could do about that but treat the symptoms, which we're already doing. He thinks it's more likely that my asthma is not well controlled these days and the slightest cold is pushing me to the brink. I think he's right about that.

You know, I've been feeling low-key bad for weeks (if not months) now. I wake up exhausted, I'm tired all the time, sometimes I have brain fog...no wonder! I'm not breathing well! For the longest time I've been looking at myself in the mirror in the morning thinking, "I look awful. My color is bad; I have bags and dark circles under my eyes. I guess my age is catching up to me. I guess this is just what I look like in the morning now" and just feeling awful about myself. Well, my age may be catching up to me a little, but the bags and dark circles and pale blotchy skin probably has more to do with a lack of oxygen more than my age. I hope so, anyway. 

I went back by work to close out the day's deposit, then left early. I've been at home since hoping to get a nap, but I can't (probably due to the prednisone) but I'm breathing a little easier at least. 

God, what a week. Thank you all for the supportive comments on my last post.

One thing after another

 I had today off for my appointment with the allergist. They did the allergy tests and here are the things they found that I'm allergic to: dust mites (this was apparently the thing I reacted most strongly to), two types of grasses, two types of outdoor mold, cats (which I already knew), and to a lesser extent, dogs. I'll be starting a weekly regime of allergy shots soon and I've been given a list of things to do in the house to help. Things like getting rid of any rugs too big to throw in the washer with hot water, buying a mattress and pillow covers for the bed (and instructions to wash all bedding in hot water weekly), giving the dogs more baths, and keeping the dogs off the bed and (this will be hard) out of the bedroom. Eventually the immunotherapy shots should either cure (or really improve) my allergies, but it's going to take years.

The real surprise I got at the doctor was when he tested me for asthma. Years ago, I was told I had "mild, intermittent" asthma that flared up along with my seasonal allergies. Well, today I found out that there's nothing mild or intermittent about it. My lung function when I first arrived at the office this morning was only 55% of what it should have been! After giving me some medicine via inhaler they only got it up to about 70%. No wonder I've been feeling bad for months now! Then there's my eczema. It's going through another bad flare and they believe there's also some infection going on with it. So that's another issue we're going to have to tackle.

The doctor assured me that we're going to get all this stuff under control and soon I'll be feeling much, much better. He comes very highly recommended locally, and my visit today went well, so I think I'm finally on the right track to get my health under control. I hope so. The asthma thing is scary.

After I finished at the doctor, I had to go by the dentist. Last Friday afternoon before I left work, I grabbed a piece of hard candy from the bowl in the front office, and when I bit down on it and felt (and heard) a loud crack. I thought, "Uh oh." 

Uh oh was right, a crown had come off one of my molars. On a Friday afternoon with no hope of getting seen until today. So I carefully put the crown back on the tooth, and it fit down snugly with no problem. It felt fine, so silly me, I decided it wasn't going to be a big deal, that I could just breeze into the dentist's office and get it glued back down again. WRONG!

They did an x-ray and found that I'm once again the victim of the horrendous dental care I got a few years ago at another practice. This particular crown was attached to filling material, not the actual tooth, and a crack had formed and decay got inside. It was shoddy dental work, no question about it. Now I have to have a whole new crown, to the tune of $860. And that's after my insurance pays half! (It's going to be the second time I pay for a crown on it). They wanted to do the work today, but I just couldn't handle that on top of everything else. We scheduled it for the first week of October, when I'll be off work for fall break. 

What a depressing day it's been. 

Breathless

 Something is wrong with me. I'm beginning to wonder if I've had Covid in the recent past and just didn't know it. I did a couple of at-home tests, both of which were negative, but I still wonder. Since April, off and on, I've been having a lot of trouble with asthma flares. Lately it's been mostly "on". 

I've been short of breath and wheezing almost continuously for about two weeks now, despite (over) using the inhaler the doctor prescribed. I have a dry cough that's keeping me up at night and making my days slightly miserable. Walking the dogs in the heat and humidity has been nearly impossible. I wheeze deep in my chest every time I exhale, and the urge to cough is always there. It's driving me crazy. 

I have a doctor's appointment next Wednesday and I'm trying to hold out until then, but if I have another bad night like I had last night, I'll be going to Urgent Care. I honestly think my oxygen levels are fine, but the wheezing and coughing are keeping me awake most of the night and I can't really enjoy anything when I feel like this. I haven't felt totally normal in a couple of months now.

Could this be the result of an undiagnosed Covid infection? What do you think? I haven't had this kind of trouble with asthma in years and years.