Diagnosis and advice
I am 69 years old and have had breathing problems all my life. I was a lifelong asthmatic which became more and more severe later in life. Now I have constant chest pains on one side and thick mucus. Often times the asthma medications don't work much at all. I have had numerous CAT scans and MRIs and they don't show much, other than I don't have cancer. I have taken breathing tests and they are not normal but not dire either, maybe around 70-73% of what it should be. My quality of life is very my affected. I have yet to find a specialist who will diagnose me with anything other than severe chronic asthma. I know what asthma feels like and this is worse, on top of the asthma. They just throw more and more higher doses of inhaled steroids, tezspire, and dialators at it. I feel like I am not getting the treatment I need. I would like to get ahead of the problem and try new emerging treatments etc. I don't know what to do to get past this point. I hope someone here has been through this and can help.
mikejj24,
Sorry to hear of your misery. The only advice I can give you is to find a better doctor. You say you have yet to find a specialist who will actually help your breathing problem. All I can say is keep looking. Your breathing tests show you are stage 2 and close to stage 3 of COPD. Has any doctor tested you for pneumonia or other lung infections? I know from personal experience what excess mucus feels like and it is not fun. Are you taking anything for it? Possibly Mucinex or NAC? These will help thin the mucus out and should help you cough it out. Do you utilize breathing machines? Like an Acapella and Spirometer? These also help expel mucus from the airways by loosening the mucus. Do you use pursed lip breathing and/or huff cough breathing? How is the humidity level in your living space? Too much or too little will make breathing harder. My last CT scan showed mucus plugs in my lungs. I was advised to take Mucinex to help loosen and expel the mucus. Otherwise, the mucus staying there will most likely cause infection. Once again, I would keep looking for a better pulmonologist. Take care and God Bless!I have seen one Asthma specialist, and two different pulmonologists so far. The asthma specialist put me on all the different inhaled steroids and tried dupixent, nucala, and now Tezpire. The first pulmonologist said, there was nothing he could do for me after a CAT scan. The only thing the second one did differently, which I think may be beneficial, is took me off of inhalers and put me back on nebulizer. The idea being inhalers do not work if you can't breath in deep enough to get the medicine where it needs to go. Honestly, that is about it. NOBODY has said I have anything but Asthma even though I know better. No tests for pnumonia or other lung infections unless an x-ray counts. No breathing machines, no medicine for loosing mucus etc. Did not try antibiotics, or suggest new drug trials or whatever. I don't know if looking in there with a probe is advisable or not, but no one offered that either. No suggestion for the huff cough breathing, I have used pursed lips for decades just for the bad asthma. I don't know if it's just crappy insurance holding them back or if there just are no good pulmonologists for these types of issues in my area (Dallas-DFW) or maybe both. I will probably get some over the counter Mucinex, not sure what NAC is. Thanks for the response and suggestions, I will keep on looking and fighting.
Good morning. Thank you for sharing your asthma journey with us. I see you have received a nice response from Dminor9 above. And I too have something to contribute here. First off, anytime a pulmonologist says there's nothing that can be done for asthma, that doctor ought to be fired. So, glad to see that you moved on from this doctor. I say this because, as you have experienced, there are many different options for treating asthma. That said, while I cannot diagnose you over the Internet, for your own safety of course, I can offer some information for you that "may" help you understand your situation better. For one, an x-ray plus a simple blood draw showing elevated white blood cells is how pneumonia is diagnosed. So a good doctor should be able to determine if you have this. Second, the best test for determining if you have asthma, COPD, or both, or severe asthma (https://asthma.net/living/severe-asthma) is a pulmonary function test. As you say, your results showed 70-73%. But there is more information that this test can determine for you and your doctor. For more information, I will share some links here about pfts: (https://asthma.net/living/pulmonary-function-testing-to-diagnose-asthma) and (https://copd.net/clinical/what-is-pulmonary-function-testing). What do you think? I hope you find this brief response helpful. Wishing you all the best. John. community moderator.
