i have a new inhaler. i love the weight of it in my hand, the security of enough albuterol to keep me sucking wind for a couple weeks.
the old one ran out quite suddnely circa 7PM this evening. i decided to get a generic primatene to tide me over and save that last script refill for … when i really needed it. nevermind the doctors say primatene is bad. it works right?
didn’t have the generic i’m used to, so bought the primatene without the mouthpiece – it was all they had. got it home, washed out an old mouthpiece. anticipating wheeziness, i took a puff. and i got worse. i tried. i deep-breathed. i visualized.
i got worse. 8:40 PM i call the pharmacy to see if they are open, can i get a refill. they say ok. i leave the house, get there, realize new insurance cards are home and i’ll fail to save some six whole bucks if i don’t go back and get them. i go back. i get them. it occurs to me that i have a brand new (almost) primatene i cannot ever use. i put it back in the box and get the receipt.
i get to the drugstore. i ask can i return this, i (lie and) say i thought it had the mouth thingy, and it didn’t and i thought i couldn’t get a refill in time and … (the lady remembers me as the person that had to write three different checks because i was not breathing the best and kept writing the wrong thing in the wrong line) … they give me a refund. brief guilt knowing i did take a puff. (flamers, flame away, yes i did lie. i confess.) (probably my asthma is karma, right?)
weirdness: up till this point i’m basically gasping for breath. i actually *see* the inhaler in the little tray. it goes back as they reprocess my insurance, but relief begins. the psychological aspect of having no inhaler is by far my biggest asthma trigger. pollen? cats? smog? no. i’m fine till i realize i have no inhaler. at that point, the panic tightens in my chest and it sounds like a herd of kittens is living in my bronchial tubes.
one time a guy i knew told me asthma is all in the mind. he told me he had a nephew that had asthma, and he told the nephew that he’d sold the asthma to a medical research firm back east, for fifty bucks. handed the kid a fifty. kid was cured.
how far is that from true? how much of this is what i think it might be, and not what it is?
i figure it’s pretty real. when i go to the ER the doctors always warn me about waiting so long — how many ‘bad outcomes’ they have there.
bad outcomes. i know what that means. *deep breath* i love breathing. breathing rocks.
thanks moosie.
Sell the asthma for 50 bucks, well if it only was that simple to get rid of whatever disease some of us would have some extra cash ;o]
It sucks that you have to deal with that, you seem to have a very hard one. Make sure you always have medications in the house or with you wherever you go.
send me your address and i’ll send you one of our extra albuterol refills. medi-cal covers it so i always get the refills just in case, but robby rarely needs his inhalers [because we no longer have PETS and i quit SMOKING when i got pregnant--hint, hint] so i’m happy to share your tax dollars at work.
smoking and cats=bad
you gotta start taking care of yourself, sweetie. a lot of us are depending on you!
I have mild asthma. Sometimes I do get psychological tightness; I especially tend to feel the need to use my inhaler right before bed and suspect I don’t really need it that badly. But when I test on my peak flow meter, I am slightly down from normal, so I often do use it. I keep a mostly-empty inhaler around for instances where the constriction is very slight and the mere act of inhaling deeply and holding it makes it feel somewhat better.
Luckily cats are not a big trigger for me. Rats are, and I eventually gave them up. Now I’m on Advair, and it’s completely eliminated my exercise-induced wheezing but not 100% of my random/allergic attacks. If I am without my inhaler, I start paying too much attention to my breathing and imagining that I’m feeling tightness and worrying about it.. the act of having an inhaler around for security does help that.
But the idea of asthma itself being psychological is really annoying. Yeah, I thought really hard about my bronchial tubes and they swelled up. Sure. There are kids who have asthma and get better as they grow up, but I really hate the term ‘outgrow’ for asthma, like if I’ve got it at age 28 (it began at 23, adult-onset) I’m somehow a failure or a mental case.
Yeah – don’t travel without spares. And your prescriptions don’t work in other countries, so if you go to Canada or Mexico or somewhere, take plenty of spares!
you know, i’ve noticed that if i’m just slightly wheezy, the act of hitting off an empty inhaler will help. i’ve even tried just breathing that way, but the prop is necessary.
i’m very much in need of getting to the doctor and getting some inhalable steroids and serevent — i can remember the time i had serevent as the healthiest i’ve felt, but i had to give it up due to expense (it’s ninety bucks for a month supply).
you know what really pisses robby and me off? movies and tv shows that use inhalers and allergies to show a character’s unlikeable characteristics. they’re always presumed to be hypochondriacs, cowards and generally creepy people. we hate that.
or, to show that they’re feeble dorky types. grrrr.
oh yeah, and vegetarians too. that bothered me more when i was one, though.
now that i think of it, the implication seems to be that putting up with poisons without whining about it or needing medical help is to be admired, macho. living and eating healthy is considered weak and prissy.
you know, that’s very true – characters are portrayed as health-conscious in the context of being ineffectual, frivolous airheads. or shallow and vain.
and the irony is, the tough charachers who can brave the harsh environment or whatever, have usually been working out with a personal trainer and seeing a nutritionist and god knows what-all, to get in shape for their role being tough.
interesting point, how we portray illnesses. either with a total tearjerker, victim kind of thing, or as an aspect of a flawed character.
*sigh*
it’s all a conspiracy, dammit. those bleeping republicans. yes, that’s it.
well, maybe not a conspriacy, but falling right into their hands — these portrayals contributing to the attitudes we have towards the sick, and healthcare policy? oh, we were going to worry about that but now we’re at WAR so…
*ahem* where was i?
excellent point, thanks.
Something odd and related:
I actually completely stopped getting asthma attacks the DAY I got the inhaler.
I think a lot of my attacks were stress/anxiety related, and once I had a little trouble breathing, the idea of not being able to breathe made it even more difficult to breathe.
The day I got my inhaler, I was gasping for breath as I placed the prescription…and the lady behind the counter calmly informed me that I had to wait THREE FREAKING HOURS for her to fill it because she had to process my insurance and there were others in front of me in line.
What kind of bullshit is THAT? Were the people in front of me unable to breathe, too?
Argh.
Lessee. I have clinical depression — and “that’s all in my head. ” And seasonal asthma (which isn’t so seasonal after all). And the itchy bump/hives things. If all of these things are in my head…DAMN. It’s getting crowded in there.
There is a one type of asthma that is most prevelant in women over the age of 40.
There was one women patient in Cardiac Care who had an asthmatic attack every time her husband visited. His girlfriend stayed in the waiting room!!
He wore big gold chains around his neck, had teased and sprayed hair,and work alot of tight jeans jackets..
That would make me wanna wheeze just looking at him.
Another “God’s Gift to Women”..
Oh wait, I was writing about asthma.
Yeah, the old school of thinking was that as a women got older, she knew it, couldn’t have kids, and this put alot of stress on her.
Sexist Medical School Thinking…Jerks….
I guess I got lucky.
I outgrew my asthma. Well, that and I stopped smoking cloves all the time.
Duh? Sometimes nineteen year old girls are not very smart.
The price we pay to be goth!
well, i do know that stress is major trigger (and yes i smoke, and yes i must quit). but the thing that make my lungs the twitchiest the quickest, is that panic of not having an inhaler. it’s like a pacifier or something.
when i used to have better medical insurance, the doctor would write ‘disp: x2′, and i would get two every time i got a refil. oh, that was such a good feeling.
There are few things worse than not being able to breathe. (it’s actually the reason I quit smoking–I started getting the shortness of breath thing) Doesn’t matter if it’s in your mind or in your chest…the end effect is the same, verdad?
damn….now I need my inhaler.
I have a friend with serious asthma. It’s definitely not in his head – though I do think his incessant whining about the condition does not help. Not one bit. Still, I have a lot of sympathy for people with asthma … as long as they don’t smoke, that is. On the very rare occasion that I get a chest infection, I’m reminded of how awful it would be to have to live with shortness of breath, etc. Awful.
I outgrew asthma as a teenager, however, I do have certain triggers.
About 3 years ago I started letting a cat into my house. One night it triggered a hyper-big attack. Went to the Dr the next day who could hear I?d been wheezing all night and told me to dial 999 the next time. He quoted a percentage that escapes me now that represented asthma suffers that died during an attack at night. It wasn?t insignificantly small.
don’t we just LOVE people who say illnesses and ailments are all in our heads – no, dummy, it’s the CHEST!!
I have a grandson and a daughter who both suffer terribly. If I thought throwing a 50 dollar bill at them would work, believe me I would do it. Instead I feel very inadequate when they suffer. You have my empathy, kd.
>..
I contracted asthma during a very bad chest cold episode about 15 years ago. I think they called it “traumatic asthma” or something. Anyway, the wheezing was horrible, and I was put on two types of inhalers.
Before those were even empty, I seemed to outgrow the need for them. I still get bad wheezing whenever I exert myself (heavy exercise or climbing stairs while holding something heavy). I’ve given some thought to keeping an inhaler with me, but I always forget when I’m not actually under attack.
I do remember the feeling of not being able to get a full lung’s worth of breath, and don’t envy you.
I will agree that emotion’s and stress can cause a attack. I have one of the worst of the 10 diffrent types of asthma. had it since I was just about one. Through the history of my young adult life I was severly limited in so many ways. with having over a 150 over night stays in the hospital. and countless emergency room visit’s ton’s of blood work, 2 colapsed lung’s, ventelated one time ( That’s a breathing tube up your nose and down into your chest attached to a machine to breath for you for those of you that don’t know.) The first time that it happened I went to the hospital for a treatment because I was pretty bad. but I could walk. waiting to see a doctor they stuck me in a room with a camera. I knew it had a camera but I was very fidgity waiting for a treatment to breath bettter. after 15 mintues with no treatment they discharged me and sent me home. I got home my condition worsend and I was not able to breath. the last thing I remembered before I passed out was being load into ambulance and going to the hospital from Where I just cam not 20 mintues before. I woke up in Intensive care unit with 2 tubes in my nose one for breathing and one for my stomach. I couldn’t sit up my girlfriend would come and see me and my mom told her not to show any emotion at all but that was very hard for her considering I had tubes coming from every where. my appearence had even changed. I had a very very rare instance. your lungs can only hold so much air then it starts over filling into your body. that air has to find a escape. I forget the medical term of this. But it sent air through out my entire body. the bubble had formed at my right shoulder and burst. I looked like I had gained 100lbs I could barely open my eyes. I was in the intense of care unit for 4 days and spent another 4 on the floor. every doctor and nurse was coming to look at me because they had to see this rare condition that had happend to me. I felt like a freak. a week prior to this incident my girlfriend asked me if I was taking her to her prom I said I would go even if I was on my death bed. I didn’t know how close to the truth I was telling then. 5 days later after being out of hospital I took her to her first prom.
all this before the age of 18. it didn’t seem to get any better. after that I have been ventelated 6 more times for a grand total of 7 times. My aunt which is a LPN said that she had never seen anyone survive 3 ventelations and live to tell about it.
I once had a doctor that was very religious and was always preaching to me. I was having problems breathing at night. it would come on suddenly and I would have to take breathing treatment in my home. I was fine during the day. My mom and girlfriend told me I should goto the doctor. I said all he was going to do was put me on predisone. after being on it 16 years straight I didn’t want it anymore. I told him it only happened at night. He gave me a perscription for predisone like I thought but he said avoid nights. I looked at him and he said yes a man in the bible prayed to God and wanted it to be light for 3 days and it was. I grabbed the script and walked out very angry. My girlfriend got sick and we had to take her to the doctor and find out was wrong. he said it was a infection and talk to her about and explained what was going on. what the medicine was going to do to help fight it. Very caring and sincere was not in a rush at all. Turns this doctor was taking new patients and I wanted to see if he could help me. and to understand what was going with me. I told him what was wrong that I was having trouble sleeping and breathing at night that my breathing was really bad and would wake me up. he did a flow test on my with a computer hookup and I was at 50% lung capacity. while I was awake. He told me that when you sleep your body slows down. you loose 25% of your lung capacity while you sleep.
so that meant I only had 25% while I was sleeping!!!!! he didn’t put me on predisone. he put me on a inhaled steroid which much safer then predisone. he talked to me for over a hour and answered so many questions. he is the best doctor in the world as far as I am concerned. No one ever did that before. He didn’t care if he had a patient back log or if he was going to be late for his golf game. he was caring. so many doctors lack that.
anyhow I moved away and have done alittle better. I still have attacks from time to time. but I controll them and have only visited the hospital here 4 times for asthma. i have since for the last 6 months been in a intense excercise program 6 days a week which consist of weights and extreme cardio excercise. my lung capacity has gotten better but still have an occasinol attack but I feel better and look better. I also read in men’s health that people eating apples frequntly have less lung problems then people that don’t due to a flanoid found in apples. so I stock up on apples. well it seems I have been long winded (
Hey… Reading these comments was interesting… I find that the point was missed when Asthmas was commented as “All in your head”.. I know just what is being said there.. When I am out of Albuterol, I panic… So I get worse… I have had triggers that have sent me to the ER.. The waiting, the having to think about every breath as you sit there, makes it worse… Thats what I think is the point. I have been taking some form of Inhaler all my 30 years.. The funny thing is when you goto the doctor, and they tell you that you are not managing your asthma… Well, ok.. I have been on every singer stupid new drug, inhaler and whatnot that they could throw at me… And ya know what, I do fine on my Alburterol…
Anyway… For you people who are worried about what the media says about you or how they potray you… Stop caring about what the media says! You know what you have and what it does and what you are not.. I served 8 years in the Air Force… Went all over the world.. Was in Desert Storm… Would I have done all that if I were listening to what the media told me I was… This is what fumes me, is people who use their problems as reasoning behind not doing what they should be.. Using there so called weakness to get what they want… And the media and the Medical word holds their hands while they do it… I am not saying that depression isn’t there… I just think it is crap when people use it to get out of things or get their way… Just like wee little children……
Rant over
Dec.1,2002 Sun.
I was using Primatene inhaler but switched to a generic brand for its lower cost. It worked fine when needed until one day I needed it — didn’t offer appropriate relief so I took more puffs — was fortunate to be able to drive to ER, was treated there for about an hour, then admitted to Intensive care for treatment by respiratory therapists. Many MDs came and went and about three days later my Board certified lung specialist showed up (having returned from who knows where or what) and I left against medical advice — haven’t seen any MDs since. (Fist time I was in hospital since 1945 in Navy for treatment for scarlet fever which the whole base came down with. Turns out that something went wrong with the generic mist inhaler and it was taken off the market (by FDA?) and since then Primatene manufacturer has had trouble filling Drug Store orders for over-the-counter Primatene.
Perhaps many other generic mist inhaler users have been made ill or died from using the faulty generic mist resulting in a class action law suit being lauched. Does anyone have info about that ? Thank you.
VIKTOR