In 2016, I started feeling like I was always breathing through a straw so I talked to my doctor about it. She diagnosed me with asthma and gave me inhalers to use everyday (she was a huge fan of treating empirically). A few weeks after starting the inhalers, I had a pulmonary function test and it was totally normal. Good, even. The technician said I could still have asthma, but maybe I was just being well managed by the inhalers.
Unfortunately due to my ME/CFS, I was never able to perform any other testing to confirm the diagnosis, but I just kept using the inhalers because they were working.
Fast forward to 2017 and I started slacking on using the inhalers (I struggle to take meds daily, no matter how long I've been doing it). Normally this would cause my symptoms to return but for some reason, they didn't. Not being one to take meds I don't need, I stopped using them and for the last 6 months, my breathing has been fine 90% of the time.
I get some days, however, where my airways (especially inside my nose) feel really swollen again. No mucus, no sneezing, no coughing or wheezing - just the feeling that my airways are too small to pass air through quickly. Like I'm breathing through a straw.
It seems to come out of the blue and I don't know what's causing it. Today is one of those days and it's so bad that I've used my albuterol inhaler, steroid inhaler, and steroid nose spray and I'm still having issues.
I was recently diagnosed with MCAS (based on other symptoms), and am taking twice daily ketotifen and claritin. I'm not 100% convinced I have MCAS though, as my MCAS symptoms are pretty vague (nausea, brain fog, itching, fatigue) and could be be attributed to many things. Also, I don't have issues commonly seen with MCAS, like food issues or hives or MCS.
So my question is: wth is going on with my breathing? how do I figure this out? Do I have asthma? Is this MCAS? Is this just an effect of recent wildfire smoke even though I live inside with air filters?
How do I figure out what's causing this?
Unfortunately due to my ME/CFS, I was never able to perform any other testing to confirm the diagnosis, but I just kept using the inhalers because they were working.
Fast forward to 2017 and I started slacking on using the inhalers (I struggle to take meds daily, no matter how long I've been doing it). Normally this would cause my symptoms to return but for some reason, they didn't. Not being one to take meds I don't need, I stopped using them and for the last 6 months, my breathing has been fine 90% of the time.
I get some days, however, where my airways (especially inside my nose) feel really swollen again. No mucus, no sneezing, no coughing or wheezing - just the feeling that my airways are too small to pass air through quickly. Like I'm breathing through a straw.
It seems to come out of the blue and I don't know what's causing it. Today is one of those days and it's so bad that I've used my albuterol inhaler, steroid inhaler, and steroid nose spray and I'm still having issues.
I was recently diagnosed with MCAS (based on other symptoms), and am taking twice daily ketotifen and claritin. I'm not 100% convinced I have MCAS though, as my MCAS symptoms are pretty vague (nausea, brain fog, itching, fatigue) and could be be attributed to many things. Also, I don't have issues commonly seen with MCAS, like food issues or hives or MCS.
So my question is: wth is going on with my breathing? how do I figure this out? Do I have asthma? Is this MCAS? Is this just an effect of recent wildfire smoke even though I live inside with air filters?
How do I figure out what's causing this?
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