Asthma

How have your allergies been these past few weeks? I know I’ve heard complaints of allergies even from non-allergic adults. And I kept thinking, “Aren’t I lucky? They haven’t affected me so much this year”.

That is until I realized I’ve been overlooking the obvious: the heaviness in my chest; the cough that sounded a bit deeper that it should; the slight constriction when I take a full breath.

What is it? My allergic asthma.

I’ve had asthma since I was four years old. I spent a childhood on medications, knew my local ER too well, and got every sickness that went around-it always became worse when it hit my chest, still does. However, these days my asthma is of the mild variety, thank goodness. I don’t use my rescue inhaler often and after a decade on cromolyn sodium solutions, I only take Advair daily as a preventive because of some back to back bronchitis I had two years ago that I couldn’t quite shake.

Right now, there’s no wheezing, just a background of slight tightness. My doc even had a listen-there’s was nothing he could hear. But I know what I feel. And there’s nothing really to do, I don’t think, but relax, stay in air conditioning, keep taking my Advair, and enjoy a cup of caffeinated tea.

Tea is my cure-all (though not a cure of course, and I take big meds when necessary). Tea was my favorite drink as a baby and I can’t tell you how many tight chest instances have been helped by a cup of steamy Lipton’s or Twining’s Earl Grey.

To those of you out there with asthma, what helps you, meds or otherwise?

Comments

ByTheBay said…
My allergies are so bad. For real, I'm wondering if I made a mistake by moving here. I haven't felt so awful in ages. My asthma is bad, though it's been worse. I haven't used my inhaler a lot, but I have a constant minor cough and sense of tightness. My eyes are burning. AARRRRRRGH! Hey I am going to try to come down to the city in mid-June - I hope we can have lunch or something :)
Allergic Girl® said…
people swear by singular. i havent tried it though, i'm so med phobic i hate trying new stuff. but yes the season has been very bad. stay in the a/c.

and yes mid-june let's go for it!

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