Laryngitis - treatment?

[OakLeaf]

Yuck. Hope the doc had something for you and you feel better soon.

[ny biker]

Thanks. The visit to urgent care went more smoothly than I could have hoped, with no patients in the waiting room when I arrived. I saw a P.A. who confirmed that my lungs were clear and gave me a prescription for prednisone. If it's not better in a few days I need to see an ENT specialist. And there's no need to limit my activities.

And yes she asked "is your heart rate always this low?" I would have been disappointed if she hadn't.

The pharmacist recommended taking the first dose tomorrow morning because it can cause insomnia. I'm looking forward to it.

Btw my copay was only $20 -- with my old insurance I think it would have been $60. Many aspects of my job frustrate me but we do have good health insurance, which is an indication that upper management respects us. I do appreciate that.

[Crankin]

You will feel better pretty quickly. I know Prednisone is not good in many ways, but in situations like this, it works, and quickly, too. I am sure, as someone with asthma, you are familiar with this.
I am so glad I stopped getting laryngitis every fall and some years, in April, too. I had to have my 8 year old son call the lady who got substitute teachers once, because I absolutely could not talk. Have a good holiday weekend.

[rocknrollgirl]

That is what they gave me last year when I had it. It should start to work pretty quickly.

[ny biker]

Unfortunately it has not helped. Things seemed a little better on Saturday but I'm still hoarse and had problems breathing when I went for a walk yesterday. So I have an appointment with and ENT on Thursday.

It's such a pain not being able to talk.

[ny biker]

Um okay. The ENT was a jerk.

Apparently it just a coincidence that this started just as I was getting over a bad cold. My left vocal cord is paralyzed.

There are three basic possible causes for this. (1) Damage during surgery. This does not apply to me. (2) Ideopathic. A fancy word that means "we have no clue." (3) A problem with the nerve than runs down from my head, around my heart and back up again. I have two CT scans scheduled for next week to look into this.

According to this doctor there is no treatment. They can shoot collagen into it temporarily improve my ability to speak but that would make the breathing problem worse. Except he refused to believe it was causing a breathing problem -- I had to get angry and then cry before he paid attention to that part. "It would take extreme exercise for that to happen." Well yeah, that's what I do, jacka$$. (I am really angry at him.)

Anyway. What I didn't tell him, because why waste the energy on someone who's clearly not listening, is that I have a friend whose vocal cords were damaged during a surgical procedure, and it affects her breathing during bike rides. So I know I'm not imagining the wheezing that comes from my throat when I ride my bike up a hill. In fact I referred my friend to the pulmonologist who treats my asthma, and he did tests to confirm she had no lung problems and then referred her to an ENT. That ENT apparently suggested some treatments to possibly improve her situation. I think speech therapy might have been one of them, I'm not sure.

So I will go for the CT scan next week and then have a follow up with the jerk doctor early the following week. In the meantime I will schedule an appointment with the other ENT that my pulmonologist recommended to my friend.

After I left the doctor's office, I remembered something that happened to me a long time ago. I was living in Chicago at the time so it must have been around 1990, give or take. I had to go to a meeting for work. The only details I remember were that it was at an office I'd never been to before, I had to rent a car to drive there, and I was by myself, which was unusual because usually a senior manager was involved with any meetings that I attended. Anyway when I got to the place and parked my car in the garage, I realized that I had lost my voice. Spontaneous laryngitis with no apparent cause. It was weird. I don't remember how long it lasted, probably a day or so at most, and it went away on its own. I assumed it was some sort of stress reaction.

So here is the really important question: if you have a CT scan of the neck and chest with IV contrast, would you be able to go for a bike ride afterwards?? The place where I'm going for the tests is right near the route of my usual post-work bike ride. It might be a nice way to clear my head afterwards.

==

Update. Oh jeezy peezy. The Mayo Clinic website knows more about this that the doctor does. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-c...n/con-20026357

I'm leading a bike ride on Saturday that will require a few pre-ride announcements. I guess I will type them up and staple them to the cue sheets.

[OakLeaf]

Ugh. What a jerk doctor. Hope you get better treatment from the new one and that he has something that will help.

In the meantime as far as the bike, I always found that sticking my tongue out while climbing, like the pros do, really helps open the airway.