Damn

After a week of really improved breathing and not being aware of my breathing or needing ventolin during the day/night yesterday and today I have been noticing it again.  Tonight it's gotten to the point where I got my peak flow meter out and measured my breathing.  I then took som symbicort and waiting 20 minutes and re-tested - no change and I didn't feel better either.  Took another dose and waited 15 minutes and again no change.  I then took two puffs of venolin and felt slightly better but the peakflow hasn't changed or improved.

I just put bronchiectasis + humid into google and it has come up with quite a number of sites that tell me that cold and humid weather can make it worse - tick

It also probably doesn't help that I due to the heat I haven't been getting any fresh air and staying in air con a lot of the time

-sigh-  I don't like the thought of having something wrong with me that's incurrable

Asthma or not?

On Friday I had a Spirometry test done - it measures the outflow of my breathing and is a good tool in diagnosing Asthma and it's severity.  I should probably also mention that I have been diagnosed as asthmatic since I was a toddler but have never had this test done, however have always been treated as an asthmatic for pretty much my entire life.

What you do is that you breathe normally into a mouth piece and then inhale a reaaaaaaaaaaaaly deep breath and exhale straight away with as much force as possible and you keep going until you have no air left or told to stop and inhale again.  You do this three times and then go on the ventolin nebuliser for 5 or so minutes.  After a 10 minute break you then repeat the test.  Now I don't know much about these things but I feel confident in saying that if you are asthmatic, there would be a VAST imrpovement in the second lot of tests after the ventolin.... however I didn't.

I had a marginal improvement in the first lot of air that comes out but only marginal AND the rest was pretty much the same!

While my specialist still needs to see the results and provide a proper diagnoses based also on my medical history, it really is mind blowing to think that I may not actually be asthmatic!  I have been  asthmatic my entire life according to dr's and treated for it, so to suddenly think that I might not be makes me confused.  Is it instead Bronchiectasis that the specialist mentioned?  Gawd, my whole life I thought I had one illness and the possibility that I don't really is confusing.  I just want to really know what is wrong!

What a day...

I'm experiencing side effects from my new asthma medication :(  Yesterday I felt really anxious and panicky and today I had that again along with a lot of coughing and this afternoon and tonight I have became really emotional.  I'm also suffering from some sleeplessness and  I'm also probably pms'ing so the new steroids combined with that is certainly not a good situation :(  Today I left work early and I watched the double House episode I recorded Sunday night and then the double Grays Anatomy that I taped last night and I cried watching them - what's with that?!?

The good news though is that I can feel that my breathing has improved so hopefully these side effects bugger off soon.

I think it is...

I think the bronchial thing that the specialist mentioned yesterday was Bronchiectasis.  From wiki

Bronchiectasis is defined as localized irreversible dilatation of part of the bronchial tree. Involved bronchi are dilated, inflamed, and easily collapsible, resulting in airflow obstruction and impaired clearance of secretions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiectasis

hrmmmm

Allergy specialist appointment

Today I -finally- had my appointment with the allergy specialist to figure out what the hell is going on with me to try and stop all this phlegm and coughing!  After about 90 minutes I had been poked and proded, had a allergy skin prick test and I was done for today.  It turns out that I am allergic to dust mites and cats and a few other things but they were the main ones.  The controlled test registered as 8mms and here is the size of the other ones:
D.pternoyssinus - 7 (dust mites)
House Dust - 5
Cat - 7
Dog - 2
7 Grass mix - 3
Rye Grass - 6
Cypress - 4

He doesn't think that it's caused by allergies though, he thinks it is a bronchial thing - I forget the name but he described it like this:
In you lungs there are vein/tubey type things that start in the middle of your chest and go around to the sides and get thinner in diameter the long they get and then stop - he thinks that mine might be more of a sausage shape instead of a thinning cylindrical/cone type shape and due to previous infections and the like it has never cleared up, or something like that!

Anyway the outcomes are that I am now on new Asthma medication - Symbicort 200 and I need to start taking the Rhinocort nose spray again but take it a different way to try to reduce the bleeding from my nose.  I also need to go have a lung function test.

He also told me that I need to persist with riding and exercising, even though it causes me to cough a lot, to the point where I need to stop for the coughing fit to pass as he says that I need to cough it up - urgh!  He also said that it's not right that I've put up with it for so long and even to the point that I had to stop riding my bike to work on cold mornings and to stop playing tennis at night etc due to the cold air.

I go back in 6 weeks time and if there is no improvement then it will be off to have a CT scan of my lungs.

I actually feel like I might be getting somewhere and if not I feel like I am in the hands of someone that can do something about it!!,

What weekend?

The weekends are just far too short!  Especially when you spend the main part of a day volunteering.  Yesterday my cycling club held it's annual track cycling event at the indoor velodrome at DISC (Darebin International Sports Complex).  It's indoors but is essentially a giant tin shed, so you can imagine that on a 36C degree day it gets damn hot in there!!  I reckon I sweated out around 10kg's of liquid and after being there for over 8hrs I was knackered!  I love doing it, but it is quite exhausting being a commissaire as you have to be constantly paying attention to what's going on for the entire time!

Today it's forecasted to be 37 so I'm keeping myself indoors!

I'll show you!

I went to open a bottle of champagne before and it wouldn't open!  It was one of those ones where the cork would spin but not grip and the cork wouldn't budge!  I had also cut my thumb the other night and it was sore so I couldn't get a really good grip.... so I got inventive!

I got out a really big, sharp knife and cut the top off!  Then I used a corkscrew and huzzah!

Getting it organised

Today I finally got around to setting up my home email correctly, ie not forwarding one account to another but having Entourage check two accounts instead of just one... it's only taken me a few years to do that.  haha

I also sorted out my work and personal calendars.  It involved copying my work one to my personal account, setting up a new gmail account just to sync my work one too and then adding the work gmail one to my personal one and deleting the personal stuff from work and vice versa.  This way I can have my iPhone sync with my personal account and be able to turn my work one on and off and all my personal calendar stuff like birthdays and bill payment reminders etc etc aren't all on my work one.  I'm sure that sounds a bit complicated but it's all a rather smooth and easy process.

Google so owns me

Exercise that is but isn't

Today I told myself that I would go for a walk tonight!  When I got home though the wind had picked up a fair bit and dust was flying everywhere - not really that enjoyable to walk in :(  So instead I got out the Wii Fit and did some workouts on that!  I really enjoyed it too!  I still haven't done all the routines, but I love how they make it all into a game and make it fun to do in a way that you don't realise you are exercising until you have to wipe the sweat off your forehead, it's great!  It's the main reason I purchased one really, to do incidental and fun exercise :)  Afterall, playing some Wii tennis or something has to be more beneficial than just watching TV on your bum!
What I don't like about the Wii Fit though is that depending on your BMI the shape of your Wii Mii changes hehe - ahh well I'm working on it!!

A positive step

Towards the end of last year I was having a drink most days of the week.  It wouldn't always be a lot, maybe only 2 glasses of wine, but I was still doing it.  Well part of the changes that I am making for this year is to cut right back on that.  Today, being Australia Day, would have been an awesome day to have several drinks while sitting back watching the tennis and the cricket but I didn't because I have to go to work tomorrow (urgh!).  I did have one beer, you've got to on Australia Day, but only the one.
It's a good positive step for me as it would have been very easy to open a bottle of wine.

There is a quote that someone on a forum I frequent had in their signature along the lines of "People don't achieve their goals as they trade what they most want with what they want right now"  so true.