Tuesday, April 3, 2012

The Jury's Still Out

Well, I had my CTs.  My lungs revealed no embolisms.....great!  I had a 5mm nodule in one of my lobs, but they said they are generally benign, so we're letting that go.  I vaguely remember that showing up years ago on an xray, but I could be wrong.  My sinus CT revealed an 8mm fluid filled cyst.  The doctor said that is likely the culprit.  It's not blocking so much as it's filling up (snot) and constantly draining.  My problem is that rarely does anything drain out my nose, but down my throat and into my airways.  He said this nonstop irritation is causing inflammation to my lungs and causing me to cough a lot and not be able to breath.  He said he really only saw one more choice for me.  He said it works for some people like me and if it doesn't I'm done trying because he said there's really nothing more to be done.

So, I agreed to his idea of steroids again.  He said the medrol dose pack is not the same thing as taking a months steroids (lighter).  He says if he puts me on 20mg daily and cuts them by 5mg/week for a month it should cause the inflammation to decrease and then I have to stay on some sort of allergy meds daily to keep it under control.  He thinks if we can get cyst to stop filling and reduce all the swelling I should be able to breath.  I took my first steroid dose last night and had not one problem breathing last night, but my cough is back this evening.  I'll do what he said though, so we can exhaust everything.  He said if this doesn't work the only other choice is live with the feeling of suffocation (I'm not exaggerating) or taking steroids every day from now on; at the smallest dosage he can find to help me.

Hoping this works so I don't have to be on it forever!  There's no diagnosis....just bad genes.  :)


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