Take Control of Your Doctor

Today was my follow up with my doctor about my continuing lung irritation.

All my labs, fine. Chest xray. Fine. Test for clot in my lung. fine. Allergy test. Fine, not allergic to anything.

So...is it exercise induced asthma? No, she said. That doesn't explain the lingering congestion, if it was asthma I'd go back to feeling normal. She said the next step was a full pulmonary function test. When did you quit smoking? Like 25 years ago. Well, it could be the first signs of COPD, but I really don't think that's it, hmmm. ok, hold on a minute, let's back up. So, not asthma. What about the particulate pollution from the forest fires? Oh, yeah, that could have kick started the whole thing. She said the forest fires could have irritated my lungs, and a virus could have gotten hold in there but my good immune system kept me from getting full blown sick (part of my confusion about this whole thing, chest congestion without any fever, body aches, run down feeling). Mike had to interject that he came down with his first real cold in the last 10 years about the same time I started struggling with this. Well, there you go, she said. You're fighting off the same thing he was, and you're just a little more sensitive to the bad air quality, probably from overtraining, and it settled in your lungs. If you've been feeling better, just keep doing what you're doing and come see me if it gets worse or comes back and we can do the full pulmonary function test.

You can tell how much they really want you to take a test when you say "no". Full pulmonary test? No. Okay, in all likelihood it was the irritation from the forest fires that knocked you down a little...you say you're feeling better now so just keep doing what you're doing. They just need to put it in the chart. Patient denied recommended pulmonary function test. Ass covered. Next.

So, where does that leave me? I don't have asthma. That's good to know. So when this heals I can go back to doing cardio without having to worry about using inhalers. Which isn't to say I'm going to go back to killing myself with interval training 4 days a week like I was before. When the weather gets nicer we've decided we're going to go for at least one long walk out in our old neighborhood like we used to (the air over there is incredibly clean, the one thing we really liked about that part of town). In the meantime I'm going to treat this like a virus. Keep up with my garlic twice a day. Keep up with the extra vitamin C. Keep up with the vaporizer to help break up what's going on in there. Will probably pick up some echinacea on the way home. No cardio until several weeks after this is cleared up. Pilates. Some weight training but not heavy. Basically taking it easy!

Don't even want to think about how much this whole fiasco is going to cost me...sigh...stupidity tax...