Persistant Cough, Mild Wheezing.

[Silent_Wolf]

I know I should go to the doctor instead of asking for help, but I have gone to the doctor a record four times in the past six months and I am at my wit's end.

Since last September, I've had coughing, excessive sneezing, wheezing, the works of a bad chest cold. Then I ended up out of school for weeks because of allergy-like symptoms and nearly threw up several times because of how hard I was coughing; gut wrenchers are really rare and they started to make my stomach and chest hurt.

In October and again in Decemberish, my doctor put me on Z-pac, which is a pretty strong antibiotic but it comes with a nasty side effect - digestive tract problems. It worked fine while I was using it, but within a week of finishing the medicine I was back to my old routine of gut wrenching, hacking coughs, sneezing, and wheezing, though the second time it wasn't as bad.

In late January and most of February, I noticed I was beginning to have a lot of unnecessary trouble with my breathing and going up staircases at school. Even with my cold, I never had trouble with them; sure, had the typical mild out of breath feeling that comes with the multiple staircases at my school (we're on a hill. Blah.), but halfway up my second staircase my legs would feel like lead and I'd wheeze my way across the cafeteria afterward, upon which I'd have another cough fit. I'd leave school whenever I couldn't breathe, which was frequent.

In late March, my doctor put me on the purple powder inhaler, Advair. This did wonders for me; my coughing ceased, my breathing became better, I could finally walk up stairs again and even my old slight out of breath problem went away. (Funny fact: We forgot to leave the lever pushed back the first couple times. XD) I finished it, and for about two weeks I was still feeling great.

Problem? Now, I've got wheezing, a mild but persistant dry cough, and my chest and neck feel itchy. I am probably going to try OTC meds before I go onto seeing my doctor, but I really don't want to have to go through asthma tests; he said that if the inhaler didn't fix my problem, he'd have me tested for it. Thing is, I didn't think I'd have to go back because I felt fine, but then this mess started and I think I'm sick again. Because I don't want the school to panic on me, I want to get this over and done with before I become severely sick and make people think I've got the stupid swine flu. -_-;

Does anybody have any idea what I could do to make it stop doing this to me before I have to take more medically-inclined steps? I've tried coffee, garlic pizza sauce, tea, but nothing seems to work. DX

[Aihana_]

All I can think of is severe asthma. But you had advair, and it didn't work? Or you finished it? I would say, if it worked great, hey, maybe you have really bad asthma.

[Silver_Wolf_Kitty]

What it could be is a really bad allergy. My younger brother uses advair for his allergies, which have asthma-like symptoms. It works great for him and he is around what causes it all of the time--animal fur and dandur, particularly cats and dogs.

I'd try to figure out what is a constant factor around these times(and what might've changed) to see if it is an allergy. You can develop allergies later in life; I didn't start have trouble with pine trees and their like until about 4-5 years ago and my egg allergy has only gotten worse with age. You might've just developed one.

If that doesn't make sense, your reactions sound like your mind is playing tricks with you. The fact that you got better with using it right means it was having a placebo effect, which could mean this is all mental. Could it be stress? I know I develop a terribly itchy, bright red rash on my chest in stressful social situations, you might have a constant one(at home or school) which is causing it. It may sound surprising, but people sometimes make themselves feel better by just thinking a medicine is doing something, which could mean their symptoms are self-caused.

[Silent_Wolf]

The allergy one does make sense. Especially since I'm finally allergic to cats, but that's never made me wheeze like I've been doing, just causing itchy eyes. At first I didn't think the Advair would work; I was having trouble using it and I nearly gave up at first because I didn't feel better, but after a week it started working. The only thing that stops me thinking it's all allergies is that I took Zyrtec for a month and it only helped a little as regards the sneezing.

I've recently become stressed enough to cause me to feel tight chested, that's true, but this has been going on longer than a couple of weeks and the stress isn't constant; the source is this week's standardized testing (which for some stupid reason is 4 days long this time) and once it's over, I never have to take it again. The only other source of stress I can think of is arguing with my brother about his bad videogame habits (screaming and yelling at people incessantly), but I can usually calm myself down with a book in my room so I don't know if that could be it.

My doctor thinks I may have asthma because both sides of my family had it; my uncle on my dad's side had it through his childhood and teen years, but grew out of it, and my mom's brother still has asthma to this day. I don't go back to my doctor officially until mid June, but Mom says that if I keep coughing like this I'm going back. I really don't want to, but she's getting tired of it too.

EDIT Update:

Well, Mom took me to the doctor's today and he's put me back on Advair, as well as putting me on Singulair; I'm to go back on June 19 to see if it's really working. I had a coughing fit last night, and my mom described it as a barking cough; he wanted to know if there was any wheezing involved, and I told him yes, I started wheezing whenever I was trying to sleep. He's pretty sure it's asthma now. :\ I give up.