flutter valve

[redbird]

I skipped using the "flutter valve" to clear gunk out of my lungs Sunday morning and evening, and Monday morning; I think that's the longest I've skipped since I started using it. Before this, I skipped a few mornings to avoid coughing too much while at the neurologist or dentist's office, then used the device after dinner on those days.

rysmiel asked me in email whether I'm satisfied with the degree to which it is helping overall, and I think so, but it's hard to be sure. I was coughing enough during the day Monday that I used my albuterol inhaler twice, by itself rather than as part of the Mucinex-inhaler-flutter valve process, which is suggestive but not a lot of data.

My current plan is to skip the mornings while traveling to and at Scintillation next month, and likely skip the evenings as well, rather than sit up annoyingly late until I have stopped coughing again, which I would much rather be sitting or standing for rather than lying down.

Comments

[andrewducker]

I hope things improve soon.

[redbird]

Thanks, but my impression is that this is as good as it's likely to get. Annoying as the process can be, it's a lot better than waking up from a sound sleep because I'm coughing hard, and the pulmonologist said this reduces my risk of lung infections.

The bronchiectasis may be a weird post-covid symptom, or an outgrowth of the cough that I never got rid of after summer of 2021. When they were testing me for Mycobacterium avium complex infection, she told me that if I did have that (which I fortunately do not), it might have been caused by the bronchiectasis, or vice versa.

This was at the same appointment when she told me "don't google," and I told her I already had, enough to find out that such infections aren't contagious, and I didn't have to worry about my partners catching it. But most people aren't going to look at that odd name, and immediately think of the two big, scary, but not very contagious diseases caused by other mycobacteria: TB and leprosy.