After several episodes of coughing, shortness of breath and general difficulty breathing the on-call physician ordered a chest x-ray this past weekend. Not surprisingly the film showed no visible problems. The nursing staff has continued to work with breathing difficulty through today, Monday, and this evening the physician ordered a "nebulizer treatment" and Mom was able to calm and go to sleep.
My lay-person opinion and thoughts.
Mom has been diagnosed with Wegener's Granulormatosis for more then ten years. She has been on Septra for extended periods of time (years at a time) and she ended the Septra treatment about two years ago while the vasculitis was in remission or a calm period. I think it is back and the pre-admission physical Mom had back in May confirmed that some of the symptoms had returned including subcutanious bleeding and upper respitory distress and fruitless coughing.
Quoting from vasculitis.med.jhu.edu
Wegener's can affect virtually any site in the body, but it has a predisposition for certain organs. The classic organs involved in Wegener's are the upper respiratory tract (sinuses, nose, ears, and trachea [the "windpipe"]), the lungs, and the kidneys. Listed below are the organs commonly involved in Wegener's Granulomatosis and the specific disease manifestation(s) in each organ.
The care nurse I spoke with this evening referred to COPD, which is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
Quoting from lungusa.org
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a term referring to two lung diseases, chronic bronchitis and emphysema, that are characterized by obstruction to airflow that interferes with normal breathing. Both of these conditions frequently co-exist, hence physicians prefer the term COPD. It does not include other obstructive diseases such as asthma.
Me again:
Obviously this is also a possibility but with the history of Wegener's I am no at all certain that COPD is the current condition.
We are a long way from a care plan and there is no diagnosis of the current condition but this is truly a complication for Mom. She is not mentally in a condition to understand care that might include nasal oxygen or other hoses or appliances. I would imagine she would pull and tear at any hose or tube used for breathing assistance.
I had better stop speculating.
1 comment:
I got your comment because I Google the keyword Wegener's. I have Wegener's and wanted to keep up with how it affects others. I am sorry to hear about the problems your mother is having. You might consider that extreme coughing could be caused by some medications. I was put on Methotrexate (MTX) by my doctor and started coughing which got worse and worse. I told my doctor I thought it was a reaction to the MTX. He did not think so but I finally proved it was so I was taken off of it and was fine thereafter.
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