I agree that seeing the doc would be the best thing. You don't want mucus to make itself at home in your chest. Bronchitis can be very hard to get rid of if you don't treat it early.

But if it's any comfort at all, I know how you feel. I developed reactive bronchitis over the weekend. Had the doc check me out on Monday and she saw that I had a nasty bacterial infection going on, so I'm doing the Zithromax thing, which usually works for me.

My doc also suggested that I rinse my sinuses to keep them free of irritants. I purchased a neti pot and have been using it twice a day. Yeah, it sounds really gross to pour water up your nose, but I can't tolerate most decongestants, so this is the safest way for me to accomplish the same thing.

Hope you are better soon. I hate that awful wobbly feeling you get when your body is trying to fight off something.

fanfaire

Well, I have a cold. I never get colds. I have no idea how I got this one. Haven't had one for years and years.

Drinking tea, doing what one does when they have a cold. But I take care because I have had pneumonia twice (or was it 3 times) in my life. Years ago, but you always remember. But since I've been taking care of myself, well, I never get colds.

Alan just told me "put the pillow between us tonight, and don't get offended".

Yeah, like he could offend me!!!!!!

lol

And boy, did I make a batch of brownies today!!! Alan called them "a little piece of heaven". Isn't it great, I get to eat a brownie once in a while and it doesn't impact my sugar or my weight. Life's good.

Mel

Well I went to 'Jury duty' yestiddy.Didn't get on a jury.
Wasted day and I was 'wasted' as well. Sat there coughing and sneezing,
there were empty chairs all around me in the 'waiting room'. No one wanted
to have to sit next to me. I also was woozy and unsteady from the flu meds
that I bought OTC. Zicam, Muciniex, Thera Flu, etc.
Today I feel a bit lousy, not lousier, or lousiest like on Mon.
I prolly won't go to the doc.
The gray-green phlegm is familiar every time I get a chest cold,
a usual for me, a smoker for over 35 yrs.
My wifes an RN (also a smoker) and suggested that we be on the lookout for pneumonia and see a doc at the first signs that I'm not responding to cold treatment. It seems that I am, at this point.
No pain in chest, just a bronchial type congestion and with a nasal and sinus blockage, breathing thru the mouth makes me short of breath after exertion.
A familiar symptom as long as I stay adamant with my cigarettes.
I know I should quit.
Feeling worse, when I'm ill, just exacerbates the situation, but then I get better and never seem to get motivated enough.
It'll be he11 to pay if I wind up old- and on a respirator, fighting for breath in my declining years, I know. Its an image that sometimes passes thru my head, altho very quickly. Mt wife's an RN manager of a geriatric vent unit. everybody there is on a respirator. She's aware of the symptoms of pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma, etc.
We'll keep a watch out, but at this point I think I'm just looking at a bad cold.

Bob:

I know this is a stupid question, but why don't you quit?? Or use the patch, or whatever it would take.

just curious.

Melody

Hi Bob:

If you were my husband I would insist you see a doctor. Short of breath doesn't sound good to me. My late husband had pneumonia about 7 times during his three years in a nursing home. He had polio when 17 and his breathing muscles were compromised.

We would all rest easier if you went to the doctor. Stop smoking too!

Shirley H.

Felling better today. Head is not so much 'water baloony'.
No chills or sweats last nite. No fever.
Cough is looser - the Mucinex is working.
So's the other 'stuff' I'm taking.
The cough is always the last to clear up.

Mel & Shirl (and everyone else),
I'll quit smoking.....eventually.
Hard habit (addiction) to give up.

My doc is on my case alla time.
Its difficult when everyone else in the house is a smoker too.
We all gotta 'take the pledge' together. Its not easy to
get 3 people to agree to quit, & at the same time.

quit.

1) the new drug Chantix...I am reading glowing reports on how fast and easy it is to quit using it. It appears to be more efficient than Zyban. Some people use it less than a month! It affects the dopamine reward pathway in the brain.
Turns off the effect nicotine has to stimulate dopamine.

2) This brings me to the seminar I went to yesterday on Memory/Aging/Alzheimers. In the beginning we were shown the effects of various neurotransmitters. The lecturer was really good, very new data, up to date. She explained to us the dopamine reward system, which is very complex. But she made it easier to understand. For some reason, still not understood, people get fixated in a certain loop to get their dopamine hit. This neurotransmitter makes us feel better. It can be smoking, food, chocolate (she knew a woman who was mega addicted to chocolate) drugs, even behaviors (video games). She said it is possible to create a new thing to
take over the dopamine reward. It is up to you to do this...and she suggested some form of exercise or activity (the least likely to be damaging) to begin a new auto-reward cycle. This takes some effort, but is doable. I myself have thought about video games and might get one of those Wii things. A new study has shown that physical therapists are using Wii (bowling/tennis/ etc) to get very old nursing home patients into moving around and firming up their muscles. It has turned out to be VERY successful. Evidently this game is a lot of fun. (with my old arthritis/pain in the feet-- I can't do tennis or racket ball now). The Wii is non-violent, and doesn't have all those monsters and death and blood and guts in it.

I can feel your attachment to your cigarettes, in this post. And of course, you know it will cut your life expectance significantly to continue smoking, and subconsciously this creates more stress, which you then need to counter with your dopamine reward...it is like a negative loop.

If you knew, Bob, you could do it? With a minimum of discomfort, would you then try?

Bob: (Don't mean to gang up on you, and this is my very last post on this subject, but I have to tell you my story)

Here's my two cents. (and I love ya, remember that).
We start out with habits. We like our coffee a certain way, we like our eggs a certain way, we like to wear certain kinds of socks. We would never change the way we take our coffee, change the way we make our eggs and god forbid change the kind of socks we wear. Also, this can relate to brands of soap we use, the kind of drink we drink with our meals, etc.

It's all habitual.

People, as we get older, do not take change very well. We just don't. We get in a comfort zone, and we stay there. That's why older people don't like to move. They want their porches, they want their living rooms. They have gotten into the habit of living their lives a certain way. If they are removed from that lifestyle, all kinds of changes go on in their brains, and it's not for their good. They get anxious. It's all about seratonin levels, endorphins, etc.

I really believe this. We also don't think anything applies to ourselves. We think it will apply to other people but not to ourselves. It's just our brains being in denial big time. I am living proof of this.

I have been diabetic for over 20 years. All during this time, my sugar reading would be 250 or so and every single doctor told me "you must lose weight". Now, because I had a pretty face, I didn't look at my body. I really didn't. I would look in the mirror and only concentrate on my face. I also didn't listen to anybody when they said 'you will be sorry when you get older, your knees will suffer, your joints will suffer, you'll have a harder time giving birth, blah blah blah". My mind would tune everybody out and I said "This does not apply to me'.

Well, guess what happened??? It all applied to me. Now I was raised in a house of smokers. My mom and dad smoked, my mother's 5 brothers and 5 sisters all smoked. I never had a meal where there weren't 13 people in the house smoking. So I inhaled all that garbage. I should have moved out when I was 18 but thankfully my parents moved away when I was 24. I have never smoked. It wasn't my thing. Food was my thing. Smoking or drinking COULD HAVE BEEN MY THING. But it wasn't. It was food. AND BOY DID I MAKE IT MY THING.

We all have our THINGS. Yours is smoking. You know it's bad for you, but your brain hasn't kicked in yet. You keep telling yourself "well, it's not going to get that much worse.". I know this because all of us (with bad habits), well that's how we rationalize what we do.

For you to stop smoking in a house where everybody smokes, well,that's the same as a 500 lb person living in a house with other 500 lb people and one of you decides to eat salads from now on and everybody is bringing hot fudge sundaes to your dinner table.

This, of course, will never work.

All of you, in your household, well you all have to have a lightbulb moment, when you all say "Okay, let's do this as a family action". Let's get the patch, or take Chantix, etc. BUT WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!! because our lungs are being affected.

I have never allowed anyone to smoke in my home. My landlord once came in with a lit cigarette. I did not hesitate for one minute. I said "my home has been a smoke free zone since I'm living here, and I'd appreciate it if you would either put out that cigarette or go outside and smoke". He looked at me and he respected my wishes. Now my landlord is 80, has smoked 3 or more packs a day since I know him (15 years), has no health problems whatsoever. I believe this is pure genetics. His mother lived to 105 and his son is 53, looks 30, and just got married and had his first baby. This is a rarity. The 80 year old's wife is 70 and can't stand his smoking. She says he stinks, the house stinks and she yells at him all the time. I have never seen this man without a cigarette. He also has one leg (since he is 6 years old).
His health is mainly attributable to his genetic makeup. I mean who has a mother who lives to be 105. His dad lived to be 99. And they didn't smoke.

No, today's cigarettes have much higher nicotine then let's say 50 years ago. It's simply more addictive so it's much harder to give them up. I completely understand this.

So if you all can come up with a plan to let's say transfer this habit to another habit, for example, going for a nighttime walk for 30 minutes (which will give your lungs a nice breathing workout), I mean, I know I'm babbling here and you can say "what does she know? she never smoked". Well, here's my response.

I know, because for most of my life, I ATE. I ate all the crap, all the stuff that went into my body, numbed my soul, my brain and I got Type Two diabetes. I also know I changed my eating habits. I now eat good stuff. Fish, chicken veggies, and I happen to like them. Took some time.

So how did I accomplish this brain change of mine??? I simply look at food as fuel in my body. Not as a brain numbing experience.

When I put together my salad's of different colors, I imagine all the anti-oxidants going into my blood stream and fueling my cells with good things.

To sum it up, I will never forget sitting in my urologist office years ago (I thought I had a bladder infection), and my sugar reading was high.

He was telling me "there is nothing that tastes as good as the taste of good health". I simply said "but I can't even have a nice piece of chocolate cake, you mean I can't cheat??"

His response was "of course you can....BUT WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO"???

I didn't get his meaning until I had the lightbulb moment.

You will have your lightbulb moment eventually!!!!

It will come.

Melody

great post melody

Melody: I really applaud you for your sheer will power. You have such a positive outlook on life and are such an inspiration to all of us on this board.

Bob: I only smoked for 10 years (my excuse was to lose weight). I lost the weight, but was hooked. When my daughter because pregnant with my first of three granddaughters, I knew it was time to give them up, but oh how hard that was. My husband also smoked and we did it together. I did have a couple of relapses, but I have not had a cigarette in almost 10 years.

Mel is right, you just have to get your head in the right place. It can be done!!