anyone familiar with frequent bronchitis/asthma stuff and heart stuff

[Trinityheart8891]

hey guys,

I'm just touching base, been doing ok, busy with work and stuff lately, I'm just wondering if its just me or do we heart patients have stuff going to our chest alot? I've had a bad asthma flare/bronchitis for about 5 weeks now, started getting worse about two weeks ago, and this past wednesday my doc put me on levaquin and gave me prednisone to start in a day or so if I needed it, yesterday (thursday) I started feeling worse and started the prednisone burst, I'm starting to feel a little better, but its gonna be a while before I am back to normal, this has taken alot out of me. . .

thanks for any replies

 

[Debster]

Hi! I am not the heart patient (my mom is) but I think this has been a really bad season for allergy/bronchitis stuff. I am just now starting to feel human after a bad bronchitis bout in late April. I too got the levaquin and prednisone. (The levaquin made my joints absolutely kill) but the prednisone helped immensely. Anyway-lots of allergy stuff in my family and in my area (I live in Kansas). I know this does not help too much, but I do hope you feel better soon-that crap is miserable!!!! Deb

 

[RI Mom]

My son has CHD and when his heart started getting worse he also had significant flare-ups of asthma. Once he had most recent repair and I started using the preventative asthma med. Flovent, it has gotten much better. I don't know if the two are really related or not. I don't know if the meds. or the heart repair did more for him. He is having another OHS in 2 weeks but doesn't seem to have significant asthma symptoms this time around (knock wood).

 

[neil]

hi ,must admit i have asthma and was really worried before the op about how it would effect it,since the op ive had to increase my meds for the asthma,the doc says its because of the meds am on for my high bp,whatever it is my ashtma has been slighty worse since op,some days its bad but overall ok,compared to sum people i feel very lucky,i hope you get yours sorted,

 

[bahlvarun]

asthma is not a related desease, but often the heart and lung form a complete system, that's why effect of one should be on other systems as well, that is my personal thinking but remember I am not a doc...

 

[twinmaker]

I'm getting over bronchitis as we speak. I get it several times a year but I think mine is more from my GERD than anything with my heart. I have bronchitis several times a year. I've never had asthma and I have never smoked. I do have bad allergies. But I have read on the Mayo website that GERD can cause bronchitis. It's easy to inhale the acid coming up the throat and on toward the lungs it goes. This is what they think caused my pneumonia a little over a year ago. Bad stuff. I thought it was way worse than either of my heart surgeries. Actually thought I was going to die. LINDA

 

[deano89]

i suffer both, and like neil was , i am concerned about this during the op completely forgot to mention asthma to the surgeon when i met him,but in the Uk now the doctors are saying take hayfever tablets every day during the summer to prevent attacks and touch wood i have been pretty good so far ,a lot better than past years.
i have found asthma also confuses the sob symptom its hard to know whats really going on !

 

[Maryka]

I have what I call "mild" asthma, but have been pretty much without symptoms in recent years. (You can look up my presumed recent asthma attack elsewhere on this site.) Mine was usually brought on by exercise and when my aortic aneurysm showed up in the early 90s, I was told to quit exercising and the asthma disappeared!

Because I became allergic to egg whites about 15 years ago, I was put on pneumonia shots instead of flu shots. I have never been healthier than since I went on pneumonia shots!

Anyway, asthma is a bit tricky to diagnose. I agree with the person who suggested you might get evaluated for heart failure symptoms. They can cause some wheezing and shortness of breath IMHO. Just after heart surgery, however, even though I was told I was recovering miraculously (not my opinion, however, though have nothing to compare it to), I could not walk as far as other OHS patients. One physical therapist thought I was responding like someone with asthma.

Also, my childhood was filled with bronchitis and asthma-type-illnesses because my mother practiced her own type of "holistic medicine" on me and I literally never went to a doctor. I wonder if all that suffering did me harm. (Some have said I probably developed lots of immunities from all of that suffering without antibiotics.)

 

[Trinityheart8891]

hey,

thanks guys for the replies I really appreciate it, I am starting to feel better, the prednisone made a big difference, and right now I am only needing my xopenex 2-3 times a day at the most, as well as my symbicort and singulair which is much better than I was before, I finish my prednisone tomorrow, we'll see how I do after that

I know its hard to tell asthma and heart stuff apart, I think thats why I went so long without being diagnosed with asthma, I was diagnosed when I kept getting bad chest colds/bronchitis, my GP and I diagnosed it by measuring my peakflows, which show that I get 20-30% improvement in my peakflow with bronchodilators I thought it was just when I am sick, but my new ACHD doc told me to try and focus on treating the asthma with a controller med and see how that worked out, I went on pulmicort and alot of my SOB type symptoms went away for the most part, untill I got sick this time around, so I'm hoping this settles back down to where I was before it started, I'll probably also mention it to my cardio the next time I see him, whenever that is. . .

thanks linda for the info about GERD, I actually had SEVERE gerd myself, and had a laparoscopic nissen fundoplication to repair it, and havent had any issues since

well, I am gonna lay dow for a while before work
laters
thanks again