The pain I felt inside my chest when I woke up made me realize indeed I have asthma. The pain comes nowhere else but from my swelling air tube that connects my nose to my lungs. This pain I used to ignore and just associate with the over all experience of having an asthma. But as I grow older, I learned to pay attention, identify and pinpoint the source of my discomforts.
This pain gets worse when I cough. It's the tearing sensation from my throat transferred to the inside of my chest. It's like my airways is constricted or swelled and yet it is forced to stretch every time I cough. Worse, to cough is not something we voluntarily do.
I have been taking inhalation medication since two days ago, realizing only now that its content is depleted.
I bought a new inhalation solution and I don't feel as much discomfort as I felt when I woke up.
With the self-administered anti-biotic, inhalation, and another anti-asthma tablet, I hope I get well four days from now, the latest.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
What Asthma Brings
It seems that a generic brand for Cefixime, Taxocef-O, a film coated tablet manufactured by an Indian pharmaceutical company, Plethico, is working. I was a little bit hesitant to buy Taxocef-O because it cost almost as half as Tergecef, a brand prescribed by my old, thin, chain smoker, and slouching doctor. And since it was cheaper and manufactured by an Indian company, it is stereotyped as fake and therefore infective. I hope its effectiveness comes from the fact that it contains just the right amount of medicinal elements in it, and not in excess. It's Bureau of Food and Drugs certified as safe, said the drugstore attendant.
I started taking Taxocef-O yesterday morning when cold was dripping from my nose. Right from the center of my temple down to the center of my face I was aching: symptom of sinusitis also, I guess.
Although I coughed because of the itchiness in my throat at the early part of my sleep, thankfully, I woke up when the sun had already risen.
Yesterday, since I could not move as much I do now, I tried to pay attention to what exactly was happening inside my body. I was surprised to realize that I could not concentrate because I was in a state of panic. For almost three decades, asthma would come in the form of sore throat and that unique head ache and sore throat. I could not stop it and it would cripple me to bed. I hated that, because of asthma, I inconvenienced my mother, but most especially, I hated the fact that it made me suffer the kind of suffering not enough to kill me.
Doubtless, asthma has influenced the way I look at the world and the way I look at myself in ways that I may never know. It has instilled in me this sense of helplessness and surrender when faced even only with the signs of asthma attack, and not even the attack itself. And it is when I feel invincible and strong that asthma attacks and wipes out my self-esteem.
For me, asthma is synonymous with loss. Yet, it must also because of this constant communion with loss I learned to gather myself and start all over again, again and again. Yet, I can only build as much because asthma returns to remind me of my mortality.
My cold now has turned into white, sticky phlegm. In three or four days, it will turn to yellow or golden brown. It blocks the left hole of my nose and I am forced to breathe only through the hole of my right.
Also, I am feeling this itchiness in my throat that makes me cough from time to time. I only realize now that this feeling of itchiness is maybe caused by my air tube that has started to swell. My breathing is restricted to about twenty-five percentage less than when I am not sick.
I avoid moving too much else I get nauseated. Maybe because I run out of breath.
I started taking Taxocef-O yesterday morning when cold was dripping from my nose. Right from the center of my temple down to the center of my face I was aching: symptom of sinusitis also, I guess.
Although I coughed because of the itchiness in my throat at the early part of my sleep, thankfully, I woke up when the sun had already risen.
Yesterday, since I could not move as much I do now, I tried to pay attention to what exactly was happening inside my body. I was surprised to realize that I could not concentrate because I was in a state of panic. For almost three decades, asthma would come in the form of sore throat and that unique head ache and sore throat. I could not stop it and it would cripple me to bed. I hated that, because of asthma, I inconvenienced my mother, but most especially, I hated the fact that it made me suffer the kind of suffering not enough to kill me.
Doubtless, asthma has influenced the way I look at the world and the way I look at myself in ways that I may never know. It has instilled in me this sense of helplessness and surrender when faced even only with the signs of asthma attack, and not even the attack itself. And it is when I feel invincible and strong that asthma attacks and wipes out my self-esteem.
For me, asthma is synonymous with loss. Yet, it must also because of this constant communion with loss I learned to gather myself and start all over again, again and again. Yet, I can only build as much because asthma returns to remind me of my mortality.
My cold now has turned into white, sticky phlegm. In three or four days, it will turn to yellow or golden brown. It blocks the left hole of my nose and I am forced to breathe only through the hole of my right.
Also, I am feeling this itchiness in my throat that makes me cough from time to time. I only realize now that this feeling of itchiness is maybe caused by my air tube that has started to swell. My breathing is restricted to about twenty-five percentage less than when I am not sick.
I avoid moving too much else I get nauseated. Maybe because I run out of breath.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Generics
It's been sometime since I last updated this blog. It is because I did not anymore experience asthma attack, and not because I did not have sore throat. My previous experience with sore throat chronicled in this blog has helped me a lot to prevent the sore/swelling from crawling down my air-tube to my lungs, a phenomenon called asthma.
Thank you to God. From at least the time I started this blog I have not been brought to a hospital because of asthma. I have spent thousands of Philippine pesos though preventing my sore throat from developing into asthma.
Really, asthmatics who survive asthma, or asthmatics who are able to prevent asthma attacks from developing are people who have money to buy the medicines to arrest the onset of the attack. I think about fellow asthmatics around the world, particularly those from far flung barrios of their country, including my beloved Philippines, who have no access to doctors and drugstores. A day with asthma attack is a day of exhaustion and self pity. It takes so much effort to do the most neglected yet basic function to maintain a life--breathing. During severe asthma attacks, life is the last thing an asthmatic desires to have. Living is exhausting. I do not want to live/breathe anymore; and yet, my lungs refuse to give up.
The body has its own master other than the mind the owner is conscious about that he has in his head. And this intruder for a master shows himself during asthma attacks.
Two days ago, I met a man sick with flu in his air-conditioned office. I asked him why go to work when he was sick, "to spread the virus?" I asked. When I said that, I never really thought I could be a "place" where his virus could spread.
Exactly a day after, I felt my head was aching and my eyelids sagging. Then last night, I started to feel the tearing sensation from my throat. And this morning, I accessed this journal and examined the things I do, medicines I administer myself in this situation.
I do not totally blame the man who sow the virus. I also blame the weather or the changing temperature which asthmatics like me are very sensitive with. Instead of adjusting to the weather, our asthmatic body would react with an allergy, like the swelling of our air tube. Its symptoms would be in the form of sneezing and difficulty in breathing.
This morning, I tried asking my local drugstore for the available generic alternative to Tergecef, a brand for Cefixime once prescribed by my old, chain smoker doctor. The graceful and flirty attendant who was still with wet hair offered me Taxocef-O, a film coated tablet manufactured by Plethico, a Pharmaceutical partnership from A.B. Road, Manglia-453 771 Indore (M.P.), India.
At P72 per tablet, Taxocef-O is cheaper by almost 50% than Tergecef that sold at P130 per tablet.
Since the attendant who, in fairness is also beautiful, assured me that all the drugs they sell are Bureau of Food and Drugs approved, I went home richer by almost P700 pesos than the last time I bought medicines under the same circumstance.
I hope Taxocef-O works. Please pray for me.
Thank you to God. From at least the time I started this blog I have not been brought to a hospital because of asthma. I have spent thousands of Philippine pesos though preventing my sore throat from developing into asthma.
Really, asthmatics who survive asthma, or asthmatics who are able to prevent asthma attacks from developing are people who have money to buy the medicines to arrest the onset of the attack. I think about fellow asthmatics around the world, particularly those from far flung barrios of their country, including my beloved Philippines, who have no access to doctors and drugstores. A day with asthma attack is a day of exhaustion and self pity. It takes so much effort to do the most neglected yet basic function to maintain a life--breathing. During severe asthma attacks, life is the last thing an asthmatic desires to have. Living is exhausting. I do not want to live/breathe anymore; and yet, my lungs refuse to give up.
The body has its own master other than the mind the owner is conscious about that he has in his head. And this intruder for a master shows himself during asthma attacks.
Two days ago, I met a man sick with flu in his air-conditioned office. I asked him why go to work when he was sick, "to spread the virus?" I asked. When I said that, I never really thought I could be a "place" where his virus could spread.
Exactly a day after, I felt my head was aching and my eyelids sagging. Then last night, I started to feel the tearing sensation from my throat. And this morning, I accessed this journal and examined the things I do, medicines I administer myself in this situation.
I do not totally blame the man who sow the virus. I also blame the weather or the changing temperature which asthmatics like me are very sensitive with. Instead of adjusting to the weather, our asthmatic body would react with an allergy, like the swelling of our air tube. Its symptoms would be in the form of sneezing and difficulty in breathing.
This morning, I tried asking my local drugstore for the available generic alternative to Tergecef, a brand for Cefixime once prescribed by my old, chain smoker doctor. The graceful and flirty attendant who was still with wet hair offered me Taxocef-O, a film coated tablet manufactured by Plethico, a Pharmaceutical partnership from A.B. Road, Manglia-453 771 Indore (M.P.), India.
At P72 per tablet, Taxocef-O is cheaper by almost 50% than Tergecef that sold at P130 per tablet.
Since the attendant who, in fairness is also beautiful, assured me that all the drugs they sell are Bureau of Food and Drugs approved, I went home richer by almost P700 pesos than the last time I bought medicines under the same circumstance.
I hope Taxocef-O works. Please pray for me.
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