Confused at a Higher Level...Again

The mystery of my eight weeks of coughing continues. I have been to my internist and to a lung specialist. I have taken antibiotics, steroids, asthma inhalers, antihistamines, codeine, etc. to no avail. And while my coughing had its ups and downs in the early weeks, the one constant now is 24-7. When I cough, children hide behind their mothers, women weep, men wince, and horses whinny (can you say “Frau Blucher?”). Yes, it’s an Olympic cough in duration, debilitating qualities, and vicious sound.

So, today I went to two new doctors: an allergist and another lung specialist. Both read my X-ray and CT scan films and my lung function test results. And they each weighed me, took my blood pressure and temperature, listened to my lungs and my heart, took my pulse, and looked in all the usual orifices. After all of this, here are their independent conclusions:

Allergist: It’s whooping cough. Let’s draw blood and look for antibodies. All that coughing has to do with exposed nerves in your bronchia being fired off at any provocation.

Lung Specialist: It’s acid reflux. Nothing you’ve taken has affected the cough and, even though you show no symptoms, that’s what it probably is.

Results: I am stopping Lipitor for a while since it can cause a runny nose. I am taking Prevacid, spraying my nose with Nasonex, and inhaling Spiriva for lung relief.

The really good news of the day is that my height is 66.5 inches…so I have only shrunk a half-inch rather than over an inch as last reported.