Fumes, chemicals,

[jlftech]

I am a MRI/ CT Tech in a hospital.  In the past four years I have had three severe attacks of asthma. I am concerned it may be related to wet darkroom fixer,developer, latex or some sort of mold.  Our department went digital filming approx. one year ago and latex free and I became alot better.  I was recenty sent over to a newer part of hospital  to train on a new CT machine in Cancer center.  I instantly became tight in chest but tried to hang in there and lasted a couple hours.  Stupid thing to do because I have become very ill.  Went from tightness into full severe asthma attack over course of several hours.  Unfortunately only large does of prednisone seem to ease these attacks.  I do know there is a wet darkroom right next to the CT room I was training in and I could smell a strange fume but noone else could.  I am very sensitive to scented products and perfume.  I use mainly unscented products and no perfume or air freshners in my home.  The first two attacks went into status asthmas and lasted weeks we think because the oral predisone was not a large enough dose, 60mgs a day .  This time I hit the attack with 100 mg predisone and it seemed to break. I am slowly lowering my predisone.  It has been 8 days since last attack, I am breathing fine, doing neubrilizer treatments, taking my meds but I feel like a truck has hit me.  I get extremely weak,dizzy,lightheaded and just feel terrible with these attacks.  I have an asthma, allergy specialist who usually does not have people that have to have such large mg of predisone as it takes for me.  My maintenace meds are singulair at night, allegra D twice a day, pulmicort steroid inhaler two to three puffs twice a day.  I can go months without any trouble at all and then this will happen.  I am afraid it is going to happen more often and my body will not be able to tolerate this.  I am a healthy 45 year old white female, small, petite build, 120 pounds, 5' 2" but have this serious chronic disorder.  My asthma allergy  specialist does say I have an high ANA blood test but that more indept blood work he does every year does not point to any lupus or other disease.  When I am flaired up as of now I do take additional meds of xopenex neublizer three to four times a day and pulmicort resoules in neuriblizer once to twice a day as needed.  I swell up very bad from the oral predisone so I try to get off of it as soon as possible.  Can you offer me any advice about what is happening to me and if I am doing everything possible to prevent this from happening again.  I did go to a urgent care and recieve a solermetrol intra muscular injection which helped this time but in the past it did'nt seem to help at all.  The only thing I have tested allergic to is dust mites, possibily mold.  Cold weather also with cause problems for me too.  Over the past few years I have had at least three negative chest xrays.  Aspirin does make it harder for me to breath because it tightens my chest.  I usually do not have wheezing in the beginning of these attacks because my chest closes so tight and it feels like no air can move.  Thanks.
Thanks,  

[Levi212]

It sounds to me like you're having a reaction from particles entering your lungs. Sometimes it doesn't take much to trigger an asthmatic reaction, like in your case with perfumes and the chemicals from a next door dark room. Something you can do, although it may not initially help you directly, is suggest that the clinic you work at purchase a filtration system that can cover the entire clinic. What this will do is it will take all of the air in every room and filter out the particles that would trigger your reactions.

The place to find information on such products would be at www.airlifeone.com. By getting a filtration system it would significantly improve your condition. I've seen it work with my own friends, and problems that they normally have now no longer affect them.

I hope that this is helpful.