Help me puzzle this one out, because Dr. Internet is no help at all.
Extremely frequent need to clear my throat (mucus?), stabbing pain in one Eustachian tube and an ache in the other. Quite painful to swallow, shortness of breath. The SoB just kicked in Friday, the rest of it’s been going on for a week or so. Fatigue, but I don’t think that’s compelling as I haven’t been sleeping well due to this.
No fever, no congestion, no aches/pains. No sign of infection whenever the doctor looked down the throat, ears and nose. Blood pressure and pulse normal. Only known allergy is amoxicillin, which I’m pretty sure I haven’t been exposed to.
Doctor at the urgent care center tells me it’s an allergy attack and sends me home with Singulair (1/day). This helps a bit with the SoB, but does not entirely relieve it. I’ve also had a palm-sized rash on both forearms for a while (months) that’s resisted erithromycin. I’ve just been ignoring it, but I’m wondering if it ties into the allergy theory.
The Internet is full of wonderful ideas like pulmonary infections, collapsed lungs, and so forth. I’m no particular danger of spontaneously dropping dead, but anyone have a clue what this thing is? I’m going to go back if symptoms haven’t let up in a few days. The shortness of breath is annoying, but it doesn’t really seem to be getting worse.
Also, why does the Singulair documentation tell me to take it at night? What difference does the time of day make so long as it’s consistent?
Go see an ear/nose/throat guy. I had an excruciating kid-style earache a few years back; the ER gave me an antibiotic and painkiller. A week later, while it still didn’t hurt, I lost all hearing in the ear – when I went to the specialist, he rolled his eyes and mumbled about how the ER types never get that stuff right.
Diagnosis from some overworked guy in an emergency room is to be ignored. You should go to a doctor in a regular practice who has the time to think about what you actually have instead of just triaging you as “not about to die”.
Go to your family doctor. Non-emergency clinics are just as bad. No offense to the doctors working there, but they usually have full waiting rooms full of kids with really weak symtpoms accompanied by panicking mothers that they just really want out the door.
I get all of those symptoms when my thyroid levels are really out of whack but it also sounds like it could be allergies. I’d go to an ENT and if they don’t find something, I’d have some blood work done if it persists just to rule out other things.
Often presents as pain in unusual areas coupled with shortness of breath. For instance, I came down with it once and the pain was up at my clavacle. Their X-rays were all in that area and they misdiagnosed me for almost 24 hours after emergency room admittance (pain became excruciating) until someone re-ran the X-rays and covered my now fluid-filled lungs. Swollen lung was pinching a nerve against a bone which is why I felt it in my clavicle they told me later. (At which point I had been administered enough morphine that I no longer fucking cared.)
Not enough info in the history unfortunately. The symptoms you are having could all be related or not. Off hand I’d look at s. pneumoniae otitis media which could have progressed into the lungs. Is your sputum purulent (yellow sickly green)?
I wouldn’t normally suspect an allergic hypersenstitivity reaction unless there was something in your history that suggests it. The palm sized rashes could be a sign. Are those bilateral on the arms (same location and size on both sides)? Have you changed anything recently such as laundry detergants/cologne/deoderant, etc? With all that said, unless both ears have been exposed to the allergen causing the rashes that would not explain the pain.
Shortness of breath is also a tricky sign. Is it when not active or only when active? Do you notice it more when lying down? What you are looking for there is for fluid in the lung parenchyma or pleural space. If you’re not terribly ill, it could be mycobacteria pneumonia (commonly called walking pneumonia).
Anyways, best thing to do is to see your family doctor or go to an ENT.
