48 yr old female..never had asthma in my life. But..Im just wondering whats going on..and yes..I will be seeing my Dr...I just thought I would come here first...
I had the H1N1 flu mid-Nov. I am in week 2 of getting over it. It started with the dry cough...which lasted throughout the entire horrible flu. The cough has hung on. They tell me that seems to be the norm. During the flu..I did alot of what im told is wheezing...when I would lay down to sleep I would "crackle" when I breathed..which I found very irritating. I coughed all the time. At one point they wanted me to go to ER for chest xray..but I was alone..and actually, too sick, weak, etc, to take myself there. So they prescribed an antibiotic.
Now, in week 2 of recovery, I am left with the cough. Not enough to keep me up at night, not enough to annoy my coworkers too much..but ..its there. Always there. Dont really cough up anything...maybe clear stuff. But I do wheeze some, mostly at night. I went to the Nurse Practitioner at our clinic at work. She spent alot of time listening to my left upper lung..said she " heard something". I thought she would send me for a chest Xray..but she didnt..I am still run down, exhausted and not myself yet, Im assuming remnants from the flu.
She prescribed a dose of Prednisone. Now..Ive heard horror stories about that drug. She said this one is a "package"...and the dose is very small 4mg/pill...you take 6 the first day..5 the second...4 the 3rd..and so on.
She didnt tell me WHY she said Prednisone...or what she was treating?
Anybody know?
Could the flu have brought on asthma? We just went thru a major blizzard here in Wisconsin..and today, I noticed that I feel a tad short of breath. When I walk. When I am outside in the cold, my chest "burns"...best way to describe it. I am coughing...same old thing...
Could I have developed Asthma? Oh, I DID NOT take the Prednisone.....and now am chicken to go back to the Dr and tell her I didnt....