My breathing is much improved from what it was last fall, particularly when that doctor put me on prednisone. I think I'm back to what I was right after graduating from CSU. Part of the improvement I'm pretty sure is due to walking to campus three days a week now that the weather is decent enough for it. Partly I think it's that I'm back on bromelain and quercetin, which usually do better at keeping my allergies under control than antihistamines, though the Nasalcrom does its part as well. And partly I think it's because I'm off the Zyrtec.
Today I had a rather unnerving test of how much it had improved, as I managed not to put my inhaler in my backpack before walking to campus. My breathing was stressed at the end of the walk, to the point that I wished I had the inhaler with me, but it never got to the level of an asthma attack, and cleared up on its own after a few minutes of rest. That's actually major progress at this point. It means that I can own cats and still be able to breath and function normally. I'd been starting to wonder if, so long as I had the cats, I was going to be stuck with near-constant asthma attacks. Thankfully, the answer is no.
As far as the Zyrtec goes, when I first started taking it, it did seem to help the breathing, rather than making it worse. Unfortunately, it was a very temporary effect, and after being on it for a while, it didn't seem to help any at all. In fact, I strongly suspect it was making my breathing worse, as I've come to suspect it was responsible for my acid reflux problems last fall. They'd been mostly gone since December, when I first got off of the Zyrtec, but, during the four week period when I had Zyrtec in my system, the acid reflux started to come back. Not proof, but certainly suggestive.
I'm thinking that what caused my breathing to get worse in the first place, though, was not so much the cats as that I had stopped taking bromelain. The brand I'd been taking suddenly started being labeled as "Not Gluten Free." It was, and is, the only brand of bromelain that Fred Meyer carried, and it took me a while to track down another brand that was gluten free (at GNC). One caution about bromelain, however: taken on an empty stomach, it can cause cramping.
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I've been off the prednisone for more than a week, now. As far as breathing, it loosened the tight feeling in my chest, but did not make it go away completely. However, thanks to a suggestion from my taji teacher, Nasalcrom did make it go away completely. I can't say for sure whether it would have done so had the prednisone not first lessened the tightness, but I suspect it would have.
Nasalcrom is supposed to reduce the amount of histamine released (presumably into the nose, since it's a nasal spray), rather than attacking the histamine after it's already been released. Generally, people take a few weeks to start showing results from it. I got near-instantaneous results. The first day I used it, it was like, "Wow! This is what it's like to be able to breath freely!" Unfortunately, that was also the day I came down with probable food poisoning. Minor case, but due to the conjunction in timing, it made me stop using the Nasalcrom for a few days. Once those symptoms went away, I started the Nasalcrom again. My breathing is much more open than it has been all fall. I'm not sure what, exactly, it did, since I'm still having some allergy symptoms, but it certainly improved my breathing.
On the odd side, the recommendation from my taiji teacher came through a friend of his ... who got the recommendation from his "spirit guide." He's been playing around with shamanic meditation (using drum sounds to induce a trance), and his question before one particular session was about making his asthma symptoms go away. The answer came into his mind, "Nasalcrom." He had no idea what it was, and went to look it up, guessing at the spelling. My suspicion is that he'd encountered an advertisement for Nasalcrom somewhere along the way, which probably mentioned asthma, and his subconscious stored it away. Under trance, the name came back to the surface. I consider it possible that there is such a thing as a literal spirit guide, but find it more probable that it was simply subconscious prompting brought to the surface by a trance-state. Whichever it is, I'm grateful either to his spirit guide or his subconscious for the suggestion, as it works beautifully for me. ^/^
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It's amazing how much easier it is to get stuff done when you can actually breathe. I got the drifts shoveled out at my mom's place this afternoon, and thusfar they have not reappeared. I've also been finishing up Christmas presents. Not buying things so much as adding on things that I can make. Buying things is a bit scary at the moment, actually. I took one look at Fred Meyer's parking lot and decided not to go in...then it took me ten minutes to get out of Fred Meyer's parking lot. As we still need veggies and coconut milk for Christmas, I'm planning to go in early tomorrow. Hopefully most of the lunatics will be sleeping in.
I've got some pictures of the snow, but they're on my camera and I'm in need of sleep, so I guess they'll keep.
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... and breathing better. Okay, a steroid: prednisone. I woke up with a fever this morning, so I elected not to go to taiji and pass it on to everyone else. Instead, I went to Portneuf's Urgent Care Center, as this felt like a repeat of the last cold I'd had less than two weeks ago, which possibly started with some ear pain in August. So I got some antibiotics for that, but I also complained about how much trouble I'd been having with my asthma lately.
First thing the doctor tried was a sort of steam/oxygen/albuterol semi-darth-vader breathing apparatus. It gives a higher dose of the albuterol, but in a more dispersive fashion, presumably to help it be absorbed better. It made me jittery, restless, and cold, but didn't fix the tight spot in my chest which was what was interfering with the breathing. So he decided to give me prednisone, which is really scary stuff if you stay on it for long. One of my mom's friends at choir had an idiot doctor who let him take the stuff constantly for nigh twenty years ... at which point his kidneys gave out. He was lucky, though: they found a matching donor in under a year. I'm supposed to be on the stuff for a total of 8 days, and the last four are step-down doses so that my body doesn't go litig when it stops getting the prednisone.
Today I can't be sure that the difference isn't due to the steam/oxygen/albuterol treatment, but my breathing is better and the tightness in my chest does seem to be a bit better. We'll see if this continues through the treatment. Incidentally, one of the common side effects of prednisone is increased appetite. If anything, I had less of an appetite today...except for fresh vegetables. Any vegetable that I thought of sounded good, especially cauliflower. I didn't have many fresh veggies on hand, though.
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