Posted by Larry Hoover on January 6, 2005, at 14:10:36
In reply to How can this be?, posted by Wildflower on January 6, 2005, at 13:37:50
> Just had an IV catscan and there is no clot.
You were convinced there was one? The clear x-ray was almost a full exclusion of PE (pulmonary embolism). I was just about to post about that, when I saw this post.
The clot doesn't show on an x-ray, but the changes in lung shape, accumulation of fluids, changes in circulation within the lung clearly do (in almost every case). The CT (with contrast) ruled out the slim remaining chance you had a clot. And cancer was ruled out, too, by the way. And fungal infection. And tuberculosis. And other stuff.
> I've been told it could be an inflammation of the lung or an infection of the lung or pluracy or blah, blah, blah. They put me on steroids along with an antibiotic and hopefully one or the other will work. If they don't, it's off to the lung doctor.
I'm quite sure a steroid and antibiotic combination will clear it all up. What steroid? What dose?
It's going to be OK. I'm serious. The cause of your difficult breathing has pretty much been attributed to some sort of inflammation. Inflammation could be caused by a bacterium (hence, the antibiotic), or by a virus (wait and see solves that, most of the time), or by some sort of allergenic or auto-immune reaction (hence, the steroids).
A bacterial infection sometimes follows a viral one, so it is possible that the cause of the breathing difficulty is actually changing day by day. That's another reason for the antibiotic.
One thing you can do is note places you go that make your symptoms worse (suggesting exposure to something), things you eat or make-up or skin products you use (a different kind of exposure), if your symptoms vary with time of day (could be drug related), and so on. Patterns sometimes can be identified, which let you find non-drug management of your difficulties. Long-term steroid use should be avoided, if there's any way around that.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:434975
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/health/20050105/msgs/438541.html