Health Update and Etc.

This is going to be a long and heavy post with lots of brutal honesty...feel free to skip it if you want.

If you are a long time reader or know me well you know that I have always struggled with lung issues and cough. It seemed to get worse as I aged.  It was annoying - and puzzling - but managable. The sypmtoms would come and go and I would have lots of time in between when I felt completely well and normal.

That all changed about 18 months ago with the onset of symptoms that just did not go away - even after the usual 6-8 week mark.  After about 4 months straight of constant symptoms, I thought it was time to get serious about exploring a cause.

Enter the pulmonologist.  When the usual tests for asthma did not reveal a cause, we turned to more invasive tests such as the bronchoscopy.  When this also failed to pinpoint a cause or diagnosis, I was heartbroken and resigned to live with the symptoms.  That was in May.

Unfortunatley, in August the pain started.  It began as subtle pain that was just plain annoying but quickly escalated to what I would say was severe pain.  By October I was waking up with pain every day...everything was painful - washing my hair, getting dressed, even walking across the room caused pain in my chest, back, and shoulder.  I would watch the clock and countdown the minutes until I could take my first dose of pain medicine for the day (I never wanted to take it before noon).  Then, I would take another dose in the evening so that I could sleep without pain.  The medicine would only take the edge off the pain - never took it away completely. This is why I chose to have at CT scan in October which revealed lung scaring that we already knew about - but, accordiing to doctors, not enough to be causing the kind of symptoms I was experiencing. Great. Lovely.

This went on until January when I could feel I was building a tolerance to the level of pain medicine I was on and it was no longer as effective as is once was. Keep in mind I was on a pretty strong medicine (equivelent to lortab).  I was up to 2-3 tsps a day.  I DID NOT want to increase the dosage...I felt we were not heading in the right direction with this thing.

So, it was back to the doctor again.  This is the time he recommended the Diclofenec for inflammation. As I have said previously, I accepted that prescription with so much skeptisism and did not expect it to make one bit of difference.

The Friday I started taking it my husband asked me what time it was and as I turned to look over my left shoulder I experienced such intense pain - with just that one little movement.  By Monday...I could not only look over both shoulders but I could raise my hands above my head!  The pain was nearly gone...but not the symptoms that bring on the cough.

After two weeks...that was gone also!  I couldn't believe that I felt completely normal and that inflamation had been the cause of all I had been going through.

I began slowly weaning from the narcotic medication I had been taking.  To my surprise, things went very well!  In the past two months I have gone from the 2-3 full strength tsps I had been taking to a very diluted 1/2 tsp and have not experienced any return of symptoms (as long as I take the diclofenec). 

Here is the heavy part - I am stuck at a 1/2 tsp.  Physcially, I don't believe I need it anymore...but phychologically it has been such a part of my life for the past 18 months that I cannot make that comlete break from it.  I feel stupid confessing that. 

I have another appointment with the doctor on Monday to discuss this - among other things - and hopefully he will have some suggestions. 

I don't want to put the cart before the horse so to speak but I also want to discuss what are the options when I can no longer take the diclofenec.  It is a high dose anti-infammatory medicine and can cause liver or kidney issues.  It will require the completion of a blood test before each refill to test for these things. 

I tried lowering to just once a day over the past week but the pain returned over the weekend so that is not going to work.  

Please pray for answers on Monday and for God to give me the strength to get rid of this last 1/2 tsp that I cannot let go of.