How do you know when you have bronchitis?
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When I cough and have bronchitis, I sound like I’ve swallowed a live seal that is barking its protest through my face.
Also, your chest hurts and you cough up a lot of phlegm. Often at night. It’s essentially a lung infection.
Okay, so what is it when you have a dry, hacking, unforgiving cough for three weeks following a cold?
Sort-of normal? Most coughs associated with colds last up to three weeks after the initial illness, so say “medical” websites. Smoking exacerbates it, of course.
If it’s really uncomfortable for you or anything gets worse (get a fever or such), you should probably get your lungs checked out for infection.
Smoking exacerbates it, of course.
Fuck you.
If it’s really uncomfortable for you or anything gets worse (get a fever or such), you should probably get your lungs checked out for infection.
I’ll do that. As soon as I get my benefits in April.
Drive yourself nuts, if you haven’t already. Anne gave you excellent advice, though.
One other thing that sometimes helps me and isn’t terribly expensive: If the air’s really dry, which it often is in winter, use some saline nose drops or nasal spray periodically throughout the day. Sometimes the cough is being caused by dry mucous membranes in your nasopharynx, and the saline spray will help soothe them down and alleviate the itchy throat feeling that can provoke the cough. Or if you have a humidifier or a vaporizer, put that on at night before you go to sleep. Same principle.
When I’ve really had no money I’ve just put a pot of water on the stove and leaned over it to breathe in the steam for awhile. It’s not glamorous, but it helps.
What Ilyka said about the saline spray and the steam, though it’s a bit safer to pour that pot of water into a bowl (or just turn the burner off) and throw a towel over your head and the pot to make a steam tent. Also drink lots of water. Really. See what happens over 3 - 5 days.
In fact: What happens when you take a hot shower? Does the cough get temporarily worse, or productive? (”Productive” means you can feel the snot moving around. Not so dry.)
Have you tried a hit of cough syrup with dextromethorphan and/or turpin hydrate, at least before bed? I buy mass quantities at Costco. Look for the drugstore’s house brand next to the Robitussin DM. It might help to break the cycle of irritation.
Does it hurt to inhale really deeply? Do you have a fever? (Take your temp — or, really, just stop and assess how you’re feeling, put the back of your hand against your belly and see if it feels hot — in late afternoon; that’s when it tends to be highest.)
Stay on top of this. The only time I’ve been hospitalized was for bronchitis-aggravated asthma, and I’ve had the asthma part all my life.
Sounds like you’ve got the thing making the rounds around here too. Your heat has probably started to come on lately too so your home is a lot dryer than it has been. Up the humidity - humidifier, fish tank, showers, etc. My son’s been doing the cough for weeks after a cold thing too. Ricola cough drops and drinking lots of water seem to help too, as does tea with honey, lemon and maybe a shot of booze. If you’re not running a fever or coughing up lots of nasty stuff it’s just the remainder from your cold. If your chest feels sort of bubbly when you cough and you’re running a fever you should get checked out. and feel better soon!
I had bronchitis a few years back, and the doctor told me that since it was probably viral there really wasn’t anything she could do about it and it just had to run its course. She gave me cough syrup with codeine (so I could sleep - the coughing was keeping me awake) and that was pretty much it. So, unless there’s another factor like the asthma Ron Sullivan mentioned, chances are you’re going to be ok even without health insurance (although I refuse to click on the medical links because I’m very good at driving myself crazy that way).
Hey. Don’t hate the messenger, smokey.
I like “Smokey.” From now on that’s what I want everyone to call me.
(P.S. Anne, email me.)
Okay, so I went overboard and took everyone’s advice: I’m drinking tea with whiskey and honey (not bad!), and I’ve been boiling a massive vat of water on the stove in lieu of a humidifier. I feel pretty good right now.
I thought it only counts as bronchitis if it’s an actual infection, which is bacterial. Anyway, if your cough is dry you probably don’t have bronchitis. What I was told is, if you cough up phlegm and it’s dark, you might have an infection, but if it’s light you probably don’t.
Anyway, I used to have allergy-induced bronchitis and miss 3 weeks of school every winter when I was a kid (I was literally allergic to school - it had mold). I only got better for good when we figured out the source of it was the allergies, since they would turn into a cold, which turned into bronchitis. So I say do what you can for the cold & the cough, but also try to find the source so it doesn’t come back.
Humidifiers, improvised or otherwise, really help - I find that I often get a runny nose from dry air, and that usually stops when I increase the humidity. And also all that other hot-drinks-and-soup stuff.
There is a wheeze that accompanies bronchitis. You also usually have a fever and are very tired since your blood oxygen is lower than usual. Often a cough/cold that won’t go away progresses into this, its basically an infection in all the mucus.
If you have it and you don’t treat it, it turns into pneumonia. So you have to take it seriously. I’ve tried to wait it out on two separate occasions over the years and ended up with pneumonia.
My older son gets bronchitis a lot. Thankfully, he is the one among us that has benefits (provided thankfully by his dad.) My younger child doesn’t have medical benefits and I live in fear that he’ll catch the bronchitis from his older brother. I’m not even sure its contagious–but just the thought of paying for a chest x-ray, a visit to the doc and the antibiotics for the little one scares the crap out of me. Thankfully he’s been pretty healthy so far.
If you do end up going to the doc without benefits, tell them you need them to make the diagnosis by assessing your symptoms and to forego the x-ray. That will save you money even if it doesn’t give them a “complete” picture. Its the antibiotics you need.
And not that I condone this… but I do it sometimes…. if you have leftover antibiotics in the house… use them. They usually prescribe amoxicillin for this type of thing or zithromax.
Hey, you do what you can do with what you have, right?
Smokey; ;-)
The only other thing I would recommend is sweat. Bundle up more and get your metabolism going. That, fluids (preferrably warm to hot), steam and the occasional applicable med usually does the trick for me.
Bronchitis is actually just when your bronchial tubes are inflamed. If you’re phlegmy, cough that shit up. Coffee helps more than tea. Shot of bourbon before bed kills a cough. If you’re hacking up phlegm, lay on your stomach on your bed and hang your head over it and try to hack as much as you can up into a trash can. It’s gross, but you have to clear that stuff out. If it stays in there, it could get worse and yes, turn into pneumonia.
Hate to say it, Smokey, but try to smoke as little as possible. The good news is coffee is good for bronchitis. Actually, ephredine is, too. I have asthma, so it’s my coffee excuse.
Once I had bronchitis. I coughed really hard and nearly fell over and plus, I had a weird gurgling sound for a long time after. You should put lemon in your honey and whiskey.
Again with the bourbon, Amanda.
Feel better soon, Smokey!
I used to cough for months after every cold. It turned out to be allergies.
I should add that I used a lot of insurance benefits finding that out-doctor sent me for a sinus x-ray before I managed to get the referral for allergy testing.
Under no cercumstances do this:
“And not that I condone this… but I do it sometimes…. if you have leftover antibiotics in the house… use them. They usually prescribe amoxicillin for this type of thing or zithromax.”
using the wrong antibiotics/ not enough or wrong dose/ expired medication does WAY MORE HARM than good. This is how were getting this anti-biotic resistant “super bugs”. Bronchitis can be bacterial AND viral. If you’ve got the viral kind, there really isn’t anything you can do but rest and take it easy. Since your immune system is getting its ass kicked, make sure you rest and don’t expose yourself to sick people, b/c your more likely to get whatever they’ve got and extend your misery. And if you take an anitbiotic… and its the wrong dose, not enough blah blah… then all you’ve done is killed off the weakest ones and left the strong ones to multiply…. and who has leftover antibiotic’s these days????? you need to take the WHOLE course of them to make sure all those things are killed, otherwise you are perpetuating the probelm.
I can definitly appriciate the no insurance thing.. I went without for many years and I get bronchitis about twice a year and i have a dry hacking cough from about october until april….. however.. sometimes you just have to go and pay for it out of pocket… i’ve never had to do a chest x ray.. and sometimes they have samples of t he antibiotic you need and give them to you for free.
oh.. and humidifiers do help alot