Like father...

[bobquasit]

Sebastian has had a lot of chest congestion and coughing for about a month now. We took him to the doctor twice; the second time he was put on antibiotics. Nothing helped.

This is, oddly enough, almost exactly the same thing that has been happening to me over roughly the same period.

Today Teri took Sebastian to the allergist for tests. I couldn't take the day off, so my mother went with them for moral support. I predicted that the results would be the same as my own allergy tests, fifteen years ago: negative. No allergies. And sure enough, Teri just called and I was right.

So here we are, Sebastian and me. Our lungs and sinuses are clogged, and we can't stop coughing. Antibiotics make no difference, and we don't seem to be recovering. What the hell is going on?

The allergist is trying Singulair on Sebastian; if it helps him, I guess I'll ask my doctor for a prescription. But I'm pretty dubious. Deep in my gut, I suspect that all this congestion is somehow caused by pollution. And until we get rid of the cause, we'll never be rid of the symptoms.

Comments

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... If it was pollution caused you'd have to be a in high pollution area. We live in one some summers, as our street is a high traffic zone for vehicles and if we get a weather inversion the air doesn't move outside for days and we get smog alert problems (I think we had maybe 5 of these last year).

But it's winter, less likely to be pollution based unless you're near a dirty chemical or power plant, really. Air movement is also fairly rapid outside right now (15-20 mph winds) which tends to clear such rapidly.

Allergists are hardly perfect, what kind of tests did the allergist run? Has there been anything new added to your environment in the past few weeks that wasn't there 6 months ago?

I know one person who was on my Flist who spent years trying to figure out what was causing her allergies that the doctors didn't find... turned out it was plastics. She worked in a video store at the time. Plastic items degause into the air over time (something they don't tell folks about) releasing particulate gases. They don't test folks usually for petroleum related allergies at allergists.

(She quit the job and within a couple of weeks her condition improved).

Not saying this would be the cause, only that they really don't test for anything but the 'common' causes, unless you ask them to check for things. So they check for pet dander, certain food allergies, mold, dust and pollen sources, but not as wide a range as you would think.

[goddessgrrrrl.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a virus to me.

My brother got whooping cough once (mmmm, ineffective vaccines), almost killed him. Have the doctor check for it.