Your Best Treatment of Asthma

I have Lip Blister, could it be from dry, chapped lips?

Hey, I just noticed that I have a little blister on my top lip, right in the centre… it’s not a cold sore or a fever blister or a canker… it’s an actual little blister…

The last week or so my allergies have been acting up, triggering my asthma and making my sinuses super congested, so I’ve been breathing out of my mouth… could the dry, chapped lips from breathing out of my mouth have caused a blister?

Breathing Problems Lasting Over a Month?

Five weeks ago, I got a sinus infection. Over the next four days it went straight into my chest. That Thursday I was sent home early from work and I went to the hospital. I had a chest x-ray. The doctor came back and said I had bronchitis and gave me an antibiotic. He wouldn’t give me anything else to help me breath so I actually ended up going back to the ER at a different hospital the next night where they clearly heard wheezing and gave me an albueterol inhaler and an expectorant with codeine.

After four or five days I felt perfectly fine.

Then after a four or so days of feeling great, I started getting tight-chested again and my cough came back. The following Friday I had a day off, so I went to a regular doctor at an immediate care center. He listened to me and said I had bronchitis again. He gave me avelox, Tussionex Pennkinetic and Clarenex D (though he said this was more for the decongestant, not allergies). I know the tussionex has an antihistemine in it also, so maybe he was thinking allergies were causing all this, but he never mentioned allergies.

I missed several days of work over the next five days. I have a physical job that requires me to move around a lot and I kept getting short of breath and it was making it difficult. However, by the next Thursday I was feeling well enough to go back, and all weekend I actually felt 100% again.

Then on Monday (this week) I started coughing again. The cough became more frequent and by the time I woke up on Tuesday I was starting to feel tight chested again. I didn’t want to wait until it got bad. I just wanted answers. I wanted to know what the hell is wrong. So I went ahead back to the immediate care center.

The doctor I saw seemed perplexed but not too worried. He said he doubted it was bronchitis anymore, though he did hear some wheezing. When I was younger (late teens, early twenties) I had some asthma issues (I’m 28 now). He wondered if maybe it could have been coming back, to which I answered I really hope not. I don’t have insurance and all that stuff is very expensive.

He gave me a prescription for a methylprednisolone dose pack. He said if I don’t feel better by the weekend, to fill two other prescriptions. Advair and Singular.

I started taking the steroid yesterday. All day at work, I was short of breath (though not to the point where I felt in danger). It was very difficult and very stressful on me mentally. Once at home I relaxed and pretty much stayed stationary, so I didn’t have too much of a problem, but I could still feel that it was there and bothering me.

Today (Thursday) I woke up and I still feel absolutely terrible. I know the steroid won’t really work right away, but I have to go to work tonight and I’m really worried about how I’m going to be able to handle it.

Most of all, though, I’m worried that this is something more serious, something that is being overlooked, especially since I don’t have a primary care physician. I’m worried that every moment I sit at home or at work is a moment where something inside me of is getting worse and that this could be potentially dangerous. I know that is extreme, but considering I’ve been having problems for so long now I think it is somewhat justified.

Does anyone have any suggestions/ideas? The worrier in me really wants to just go to the hospital and beg someone to figure out what is wrong with me. But I’m worried I’ll just get brushed off like I was on my first visit and they’ll just pat me on the back and say take the steroid. I realize the steroid may work, I may feel better by Saturday, but right now, I feel absolutely terrible and being awake is like being tortured.