Actually properly ill.

[slemslempike]

I have bronchitis! I've never had bronchitis before. It would be quite exciting if it wasn't so annoying. I had to blow into a toilet roll tube, and the doctor was really strict and made me do it about five times to "get a better score". I am quite competitive, but was more than happy to have as few coughing fits as possible. Eventually she conceded that I wasn't going to do any better, and revealed that I was blowing at only half of my capacity, and gave me antibiotics and an inhaler. I have also never used an inhaler before. The magazines at the doctor's were disappointing, only an Olive and one measly Hello which was mostly about some Holby City star. I like the ones like Best where they offer £500 for a top story that apparently must include near death AND weight loss AND lovely new (preferably younger) boyfriend.

Now is of course the perfect time for the neighbours to start loud music again.

Comments

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

You get Olive at your doctor's? Now there's posh!

Get better soon. Coughing is horrible. Did the doctor tell you how to use the inhaler? Some doctors leave you to work it out on your own, which generally results in the patient not actually getting a lot of the drugs they're supposed to be inhaling - there was a survey ages ago about some huge percentage of asthma sufferers not knowing how to use their inhalers properly.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

It's a very frustating magazine - nowhere near any food, and things I'd like to eat being paraded in front of me. The other magazines were all about cycling.

I got the pharmacist to explain the inhaler to me, and I've had a test run. I don't think I got the breathing in bit right though. I wonder if it would be easier if I smoked?

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

I don't know - I've never smoked. (Bear in mind that the following is based on experience of a couple of types of inhalers from about 1990-2000, and so possibly completely wrong) Different inhalers seem to vary on whether they advise you to breathe into them first, but the basic idea as I understand it is that ideally you should have just started breathing in as the thing fires high-velocity powder down your throat. This makes it more likely that you'll breathe it in and less likely that you'll swallow it (almost certainly tastes foul).

If you have trouble, go back to the doctor or chemist and ask for a spacer, which is a thing like a rhomboid bubble that you squirt the inhaler into, wait for the powder to diffuse, then inhale from.