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What is causing my asthmatic bronchitis pneumonia

In the last 9 months I have been diagnosed with asthmatic bronchitis, which has lead to pneumonia twice, and right now and sick again with pneumonia, which may or may not have started with bronchitis or sinus infection they do not know. I have never had pneumonia in my life, now all of a sudden 3 times in less then a year. What could be causing this?? I have been having a lot of trouble with my digestive system. I have reflux a lot. I will constantly have stomach contents back up into my mouth, and then have to reswallow. Could this be the cause? It seems like even if I get a tiny cold now, I will end of with pneumonia.
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A related discussion, allergies, asthma was started.
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I feel compelled to account my problems with postnasal drip and all accompanying symptoms, misery, and now finally, a complete cure.  It is a long story, similar to the many I have read about on numerous websites, sans the cure part.  

It started about 10 years ago or so with an occasional itchy throat and occasional cough, sneeze, or throat clearing.  It continued to evolve through the years to get worse and worse, so that eventually it was debilitating, i.e., there was no normal life left.  In the past three years, my business took me to China on some dozen occasions and while the stress of the trip is always pretty bad regardless of how you try to mitigate it, my trips were particularly stressful since I would return home with very bad sinus symptoms and be insomniac for up to a week afterward; more than could be accounted for by jet lag alone.  In fact, eventually in the last couple of years, the symptoms were just plainly bad without regard for the trip to China.  

I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t sleep.  I was wheezing like I was asthmatic and was frequently sick with a cold or the flu.  The insomnia could only be relieved with a strong dose of diphenylhydramine and Advil.  I couldn’t lay on my left side for the wheezing and coughing.  I had frequent headaches and rare migraine with aching muscles and joints.  I developed a cardiac arrhythmia that lasted for several months before more or less magically disappearing.  I know now why.  I had to make a trip during all of this to a near sea level location, and since I live at an elevation of almost 6,000 ft, I was unable to clear my Eustachian tubes and lost my hearing for some time.  I now wear hearing aids with a permanent hearing loss that was partly, at least, due to that event.  In general, I have been a miserable human being and increasing felt unable to function.

I tried every known remedy.  I spent thousands of dollars in pursuit of relief.  I tried antibiotics, anti-fungals, antihistamines, immune builders, vitamins, nose sprays, oregano oil, you name it, I tried it.  No relief.  I changed my diet to exclude gluten, milk, and sugar, and unless you have tried that, you can’t imagine how little there is left to eat.  None of it gave me lasting relief.  And then one day. . .

I splurged and ate a little Bryers ice cream one evening.  I had already concluded that sugar and milk were having little impact on the symptoms, but I got increasing worse as the evening wore on.  I looked at the ingredient list and saw that it had little in it but milk, sugar, and carrageenan.  So I wondered what is carrageenan?  I looked it up and discovered that it was a thickening agent made from seaweed, and that it could contain up to 20% MSG???  So I wondered, is that the key problem with it??

This began a quest to uncover just what MSG, the substance we have all tried to avoid for years by reading labels, was really about.  Our discovery was profound!  MSG is now contained in as much as 90% of all commercially available food items.  It is in just about every mouth full of food we eat in this country.  I ate a pretty pure diet, but it didn’t matter.  I checked the symptoms of MSG sensitivity and poisoning, and there I was!

My wife and I (she also has symptoms of sensitivity) immediately threw out a 6 months supply of extra food (several thousand dollars worth) and we are now on a MSG free diet.  

My symptoms of MSG poisoning, every last one of them, along with my wife’s, disappeared in less than 24 hours!!!!!

I no longer have any of the problems that have plagued me for a long portion of my life.  I strongly suggest that anyone with this problem do a simple two or three day test to see if it doesn’t stop their problems as well.  It is not an easy transition to make and live with, but a hell of a lot easier than the continual life-robbing suffering.  

I am including a list of links that can be opened to better explain how this situation is so out of control in the US and abroad.  China is a hot-bed of MSG and undoubtedly contributed to my final three years of increasing misery.  PLEASE, for the sake of yourself and your family, read the list of ingredients that now secretly hide the fact that MSG is in everything you consume.

I well know I sound like a radical zealot who has an axe to grind.  I am not, but I never intend to allow the FDA, food companies, medical profession, health supplement companies and US government to destroy my health and life again.  Please take action for yourself.  I am a Pathologist (research and industrial) by education with a strong background in biochemistry and I know what I am talking about.  Please open the links below.  

http://agentlejoy.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/msg-hidden-and-not-so-hidden
http://www.truthinlabeling.org/ (a huge website)  
http://www.msgmyth.com/  (a book written by someone who found out like I did)
http://www.msgtruth.org/avoid.htm
http://poisonevercure.150m.com/monosodium_glutamate.htm

This is just a few of the hundreds of sites about this terrible problem.  

Skip Halterman
Navajo Dam, NM  


Helpful - 0
242587 tn?1355424110
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
I assume that these bouts of pneumonia have been documented by chest X-ray and that the cause of the pneumonias has not been suggested by X-ray findings.  It would also be important to know if X-rays have ever shown complete clearing of each episode of pneumonia.  Another helpful diagnostic feature would be to determine if the pneumonia has, on each occasion, occurred in the same portion of lung.  This can occur with reflux with aspiration but can also be the case when that same part of the lung has sustained irreversible damage. It can also occur when obstruction of the bronchus to the damaged portion of lung, obstruction caused by an aspirated foreign body or a tumor, prevents optimum drainage of infected material in the lung.  Foreign bodies, such as a piece of meat can prevent complete healing of the lung and, unfortunately are often not visible on the standard chest X-ray.  These are factors that your doctor could take into account in sorting out the probable causes of the pneumonias.

From your description, you have severe gastro-esophageal reflux and, yes, this could well be the cause of recurrent pneumonia; a type of pneumonia called aspiration pneumonia.  The reflux could also be the cause of what your doctors have diagnosed as “asthmatic bronchitis”, bronchitis with wheezing secondary to the aspiration of stomach contents into your bronchial tubes.  

The first step should be for you to have a comprehensive evaluation of your swallowing and reflux, conducted by a Gastroenterologist specialist.  Your primary care physician may be able to recommend a specialist.  If, after this evaluation there remains any doubt whatsoever, that reflux is the cause, you should have direct examination of the interior of your lungs by a lung specialist, a procedure called bronchoscopy.  

What you have experienced, recurrent pneumonia, is very worrisome and whatever choices that you and your doctor make, a concerted effort should be made, without further delay, to diagnose the cause of your pneumonia and initiate the necessary therapy.

Good luck
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