What I Have Been Up To This Winter....

Unfortunately life has got in the road again of keeping this blog as up to date as I wanted! We are in August already & spring's not far away - which I am really looking forward to as it't not been the best winter.

In May I caught the flu which turned into a throat infection & took 6 weeks to feel 100% again, then a couple of weeks ago I had a slightly scratchy throat one night & woke up the next day with golfball sized glands, headache & body aches. Spent the next couple of days in bed & glads started to go down however my upper back started to get insanely painful & felt short of breath - I am familiar with bone/muscle/nerve pain but this pain wasn't like any of those. Lasted a day with this new pain before getting to see my doctor; turned out I had quite a high fever & was diagnosed with Pleurisy - complication of which ever flu strain I had to start with.

Because I'm a visual person here is a diagram for those who are interested;

Pleurisy - Pleurisy (PLUR-ih-se) is inflammation of the pleura. The pleura is a membrane that consists of two large, thin layers of tissue. One layer wraps around the outside of your lungs. The other layer lines the inside of your chest cavity.

Between the layers of the pleura is a very thin space called the pleural space. Normally this space is filled with a small amount of fluid—about 4 teaspoons full. The fluid helps the two layers of the pleura glide smoothly past each other as you breathe in and out.

Pleurisy occurs if the two layers of the pleura become irritated and inflamed. Because the layers have little space between them, they rub against each other every time you breathe in.  Pleurisy can be an incredibly painful condition.

Painwise it feels like someone has sprinkled your lungs with salt - started rubbing them with sandpaper & then decided to bind each lung to restrict it's movement. On the bad days the lung pain was worse than the hip pain I had recovering from OPEN HIP SURGERY!  It was made worse by the fact I was only able to breath around 10% of normal & unlike muscle pain there was no position that could take the pressure off my lungs.

On my first visit to the doctor he gave me antibiotics to take care of any infection & advised strong pain relief - luckily I still have a selection of pain killers from the hip op's, rest etc etc. After about the third day on the antibiotics the fever had gone & back pain had eased however the next day the pain started to increase again. I stuck with it until the last day of the antibiotics when the pain had reached a new high and went back to see the doctor. He advised anti-inflammatories was the next option to reduce the inflammation in the lungs.

Unfortunately because of stomach issues I can't take NSAID's so the only option was to try -

 Prednisone is a synthetic corticosteroid drug that is particularly effective as animmunosuppressant, and affects virtually all of the immune system. It is used to treat certain inflammatory diseases and (at higher doses) cancers, but has significant adverse effects. It is usually taken orally but can be delivered by intramuscular injection or intravenous injection. It has a mainly glucocorticoid effect.

I wanted to aviod taking Prednisone at all costs however there was no other option. When I was a teenager I was on Prednisone twice during a 6 year period for over 6 months a time. Then I was not aware of the severe side effects (good old doctors!) & developed low bone density - which has stayed with me. I also suffered many other of the side effects but thankfully these went away once treatment stopped. My doctor assured me the risk of side effect for the 7 day dose would be minimal (I did check on the net when I got home & may still experience mild ones but should not be too bad.).

So the Thursday that has just gone was my first day on the Prednisone doseage of 40mg once a day. Surprisingly  Thursday & Friday were my worst days - I was completely shattered, had taken the max in pain medication that was safe, suffering lack of sleep, not getting enough oxygen etc etc. Thankfully yesterday (Saturday) the pain had eased slightly & i managed to get up late in the afternoon. Felt even better by around 10pm & managed to have a semi good nights sleep (apart from intense aching pelvis - which is one of the Prednisone side effects!) Woke up this morning quite groggy & lung pain has started to creep up again ugh. I think this is doing to be an up & down recovery & with the research I have done it can take a good couple of months to recover.

Quite frustrating as currently with my hip recovery we had just started the second 12 week gym conditioning program that ACC have approved & only got 2 weeks into it before getting sick. Luckily we don't have to do it in 12 straight weeks but to get the best benefit I would like to do the full block with no breaks. 

Overall this winter has been pretty shocking for bugs - sooo looking forward to the warmer days of Spring. Though today Spring seams a very long way away as there has been heavy rain overnight causing flooding - under the house is very wet & snow down to low levels. Temp outside "feels like" 2oC due to the windchill.  I think bed is a good place to be today - cats think so & both are using me as a source of warmth lol.

That was a bit more of a ramble than I intended on the sickness front but hey its a start to get back into the blog :) May post later - keep warm!