Wednesday, February 3, 2010

And the coughing continues

I had an appointment with a pulmonologist today. Actually, I really liked him. He's a straight forward, no nonsense kind of doctor and I like that. It appears that I have another one of those "we don't know what causes it and we don't know exactly how to cure it, but we have several guesses to try and make it better" things. So now, in addition to high blood pressure, tinnitus and TMJ, I have obstructed airways. Great.

So he prescribed inhaler type number 4 and a prescription for a different kind of nasal spray and we'll see how it goes for the next 2 weeks. The cornerstones of chronic cough are post nasal drip, esophageal reflux and asthma. So they're treating the asthma-like symptoms.

One piece of good news, my blood pressure was awesome! My doctor added norvasc to the lisinopril that I was taking because the lisinopril wasn't getting the job done anymore. So, of course, the pulmonologist wants me to stop taking the lisinopril because a common side effect is coughing. But that's normally a dry, tickle kind of cough which is not what my cough is at all. He still wants me to stop taking it for a while just to eliminate it as a factor. So, my blood pressure will like go up again, but it's just for a few weeks, then I can go back on it -- or change to another medication if it turns out that it is the medication.

I'm trying really hard to say it's worth caring enough to take good care of myself and then this -- 2 steps forward, 1 step back. I just can't win. I'm having a huge craving to sit down and snack my brains out. Eat right. Exercise hard. Die anyway. I better go to bed. Sleep not eat.

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