Asthma Journal

Tight

2010-08-13T09:21:00.003+08:00

I and my family celebrated an important occasion last Sunday. Two of my friends, helped me in everything, including going to the market to buy fruits and ingredients and cook the menu.

It was raining last Sunday. Because I have not been sick for quite some time, I forgot about my mortality. I went back and forth the makeshift kitchen we built few feet from the house braving the rain. When Monday came, my chest was heavy and tight I remembered a check up I had with my chain smoker doctor. The 2d echo result showed that the valve of my heart does not close after it releases blood such that some of those released blood gets back in. He said this is a congenital defect. He asked me if I sometimes run out of breath or if I feel the tightening of my chest.

I did not experience that two symptoms until after last Sunday. So, I warned my friends I may not last anymore. Even though I felt bad I had to honor an appointment in Quezon City. Luckily, my wife left her car, so I had my brother drove me. After around two and a half hours, we were back at the house and I noticed I did not have the discomfort I was feeling before we left. I said the car air conditioning system must have a good effect on me.

But the shortness of breath and the tightening of my chest came back intermittently and I noticed I had a slight head ache around the frontal area of my head down to my nose. I also felt a slight itch in my throat. I was also a bit irritable. I took my Seretide puffs twice daily and I also started taking another bronchodilator tablet.

None of them were of any help. My sore throat seemed to be getting worse and my condition was deteriorating. So, I bought anti-biotics and started taking them yesterday.

I had a peaceful sleep last night but I was coughing around morning.

I would like to think that the little tightness in my chest and the shortness of breath are but symptoms of slight asthma. I should be feeling a little better by tomorrow or two days from now.

Itch in the Throat

2010-03-21T15:10:00.003+08:00

Here I am again suffering from asthma, four (4) months after my last post.

The strange headache I felt two days ago made me realize I did not have an ordinary allergy, but a cold virus because the headache was accompanied by a little awkwardness in the throat.

In ordinary allergy, I would exhibit symptoms of cold. I would be blowing my nose but after sometime I would forget about it. But when the symptoms of cold is accompanied by a headache and the awkwardness in the throat, I know immediately that I caught a virus and not an allergen.

I had to do something because I could not afford to miss a once a week seminar in the University of Santo Tomas. So, I once again referred to my previous posts here which (posts) served as my guide to the medicines to buy.

I started inhaling Seretide and taking Cefixime two nights ago. I should be taking Ansimar too to relieve me from the itchiness in my throat.

Aside from these asthma symptoms, I also feel pain in my right buttock near the bottom of my backbone. My coughing triggers this pain.

A vain, or a muscle must have gotten out of alignment.

Chest Pain

2009-11-16T10:34:00.004+08:00

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.

What Asthma Brings

2009-11-15T16:36:00.007+08:00

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.

Generics

2009-11-13T09:26:00.006+08:00

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.

Under the mercy of my lungs

2008-12-16T07:00:00.000+08:00

Sore throat alerts the asthmatic me. The moment I feel something tears apart in my throat every time I open my mouth, I know what to do: shun cold drinks and desserts, take vitamins, and if necessary medicines. This usually happens when the weather changes and my immune system plummets–through insufficient sleep, or stress.

Having been hospitalized many times in the past for severe asthma attacks, I am wise enough to do everything in my power to prevent sore throat from developing into a full blown severe asthma attack. I do not want to relive the day I am so tired of breathing I would rather want to die. Imagine. The very act we take for granted–breathing–is very hard to do. I have to work real hard by pulling all my muscles together to have that precious, single breath, one breath at a time. If the doctor does not inject me with steroids soon, by the next day, I would be so tired I wished I were dead. But I would still be alive, so angry at God I try not to think about him. Breathing is so hard I no longer want to breathe. Yet, as it is an involuntary act, I keep on breathing. As a result, I suffer against my will–with every single breath I take.

It is this profound experience of helplessness that has brought me closer to my mortality. In severe asthma attacks like I just described, the thought of death is my only consolation. I would say to myself, a little more time. Soon you will stop breathing…and you will be ok.

It is never ok to be alive during severe asthma attack, I tell you. It is this experience that floods the memory during sore throat.

Drugged

2008-12-15T05:26:00.000+08:00

I may not admit it, but if it were not for the anti-biotic and the two other anti-asthma medicines prescribed to me by my doctor, I would have been bed ridden with asthma now. Worst, I could be in a hospital spending not less than P5,000 a day for my medicines, room, and the doctor.

I feel a little bit dizzy. A little difficulty in breathing although I can almost not notice it. From time to time, phelgm or something like it blocks my throat. But I prefer this from the dry and itchy throat.

I cooked, I washed the dishes, and did some household chores; I can walk, I can carry things, hell, I can even run. But the moment I sit, or take a rest, there I realize that something is wrong with my lungs.

There is just the down side to the medicine: I feel so passive. I seem can not think as hard as I think I used to when I am not drugged. I feel dumb. I just want to lie in bed and sleep.

The doctor's prescription

2008-12-14T12:00:00.001+08:00

I saw my doctor yesterday. He told me, asthma comes 90% from what we inhale, and not so much from the food we eat. He however warned me against eating chicken, egg, and spicy food since these are allergenic. He also checked my lungs and found that they were clear. He reminded me that it is important to be very careful of my health especially during this time (December) when the weather suddenly changes from hot, humid, to cold.

He prescribed three medicines:

1. Seretide 25/250 mg inhaler.

2. Ansimar (400 mg) 20 tabs.

3. Tergecef (200 mg) 14 tabs.

Seretide, I should take two puffs twice daily. But since I know that seretide is a potent steroidal drug, I am going to modify his instructions to 1 puff twice a day. He warned me against abruptly stopping taking seretide. I forgot to ask why.

Ansimar, I should take twice daily also: ½ tablet after breakfast and ½ tablet after dinner. He advised me to take Ansimar for two months, if I need to. Also, Ansimar will be my maintenance drug. So, everytime I feel any shortness of breath, just have to pop 1/2 tablet of it.

Tergecef (Cefixime) is an anti-biotic to prevent my sore throat from crawling down my lungs. I should take a capsule twice a day for 7 days. I modified this instruction of his to only 5 days. I will be ok by then.

Seretide costs P1,310.

Ansimar costs P775 at 38.75 per tablet for 20 tablets.

Tergecef (Cefixime) costs P1,300 at 130 per tablet for 10 tablets.

All in all, the medicine costs P3,385 pesos, excluding my P500 check-up fee.

Sore throat

2008-12-12T14:00:00.000+08:00

11 December 2008

I had a sore throat two days ago. Two days before that, I ate fried fish in Marikina hotel for dinner. I remember the fish because my lips became itchy halfway through it. My lips blistered the next day, and a day after that my throat became really sore after I ate mango shake for afternoon snack.

I took Sinutab and Celestamine and vitamin C twice a day. I thought I was ok yesterday until this morning. But this noon, right after lunch, my throat went so dry and itchy I could not sleep though I was so drowsy. I remember when I was young when my sore throat was not administered, about third or second day thereafter, I would feel exactly the same way. Then I would be coughing and spitting, and starting that night, I would have my asthma attack.

Except for the dry and itchy throat, I am ok. I try to be strong because I do not want my wife to worry about me. She already has her sick mother to worry about.

Wife arrives from a Christmas party and she has with her the lozenges I requested for sore throat.

Bought Salbutamol for inhalation. I remember, inhalation takes away the dryness and the itchiness of my throat.

Last time when I had this, I believe I took the same medication including the inhalation. I believe, after three days I still had the itchy and dry throat I had to see a doctor for an anti-biotic prescription.

The decession to see the doctor

2008-12-12T10:15:00.000+08:00

I used my nebulizer for the first time last night. I bought it last year and it was turned on only when it was tested. It calmed me down but I was not able to sleep well because I could not breathe well. Aside from that, it was a peaceful night with my wife beside me. In the morning, I forced myself out of bed and went down to the kitchen supposedly to help wife prepare the fish for cooking; but I abandoned the plan when I felt my body was not into it. I went back to bed and tried to sleep again. After a while she went back to the room naked from the bathroom. She changed her clothes and cooked. After sometime, she called me and we ate breakfast together.

I nebulized again for the second time after breakfast. I also took my celestamine and my sinutab. I feel calm but I know something is not right with my windpipe. I have decided to see the doctor tonight when wife returns from work. I stayed in bed almost the whole morning reading Genevieve Asenjo’s “Komposo ni Dandansoy” I plan to review.

First symptoms

2008-12-12T06:18:00.000+08:00

Except for the dry and itchy throat, I am ok. I try to be strong because I do not want my wife to worry about me. She already has her sick mother to worry about.

Wife arrives from a Christmas party and she has with her the lozenges I requested for sore throat.

Bought Salbutamol for inhalation. I remember, inhalation takes away the dryness and the itchiness of my throat.