I started coughing right after Christmas, and it got progressively worse. Of course, I had been in my PCP's office the day before on another matter, so I just called her office and asked her nurse what I could do about this awful congestion. Her answer was: Mucinex DM, every 12 hours for 7 days.
I'll tell you, that stuff really works. My hacking and whooping went into mere coughs and sneezes in a week. Fine, I thought.
Heh. I forgot Lupus has her own rules. Just when you think you have a health problem whipped, she raises her ugly head. The cough and congestion came back. With a vengeance. This one was worse. I kept pouring the Mucinex DM religiously; my son joined me doing the same. Our house sounded like a tuberculosis sanitorium. (You young 'uns probably don't know about that....don't know if they even segregate tb patients anymore.)
So I toughed it out for another 10 days, dragging myself around, until I began running a fever. That's it. I'm in trouble when I run anything over 98.6. I mean, anything over 98.6. My "normal" temp is around 97.0 so if I'm a bit over that, it's a fever.
I called my doctor and got in two days later.
She checked me over, asked some pertinent questions, and then announced, "You've got bronchitis."
No surprise there. One of my earliest memories is of being in bed with a sheet "tented" over me, with warm steam directed at me. I had bronchitis every winter until i was about 12, when I skipped one winter with that little condition, and I was declared "over it."
Until I got lupus, that is. I'm hit in my lungs or pleura or bronchial tubes every time I have a flare. So when I began running a fever, I hauled a** to the doctor's office.
She prescribed a Z Pak and within 5 days, I was doing soooo much better.
I still feel kind of shaky, but that's better than hacking up a lung every five minutes.
And I've got a big supply of Mucinex DM on hand, just in case.....Winter isn't over yet, ya know.
Lupus
