I went back to the hospital yesterday afternoon for my annual review follow up. I went to work in the morning and then left at 3 o'clock for my appointment at 3:30 and mum met me there. When I arrived I did my weight and lung function. Unfortunately, my lung function had dropped down again, but not massively. It was 63%.
Dr. Orchard came and saw me and we spoke about my annual review results. We said this year hasn't been the best for me with my lung function constantly dipping and us battling to keep it up. But he said he wants to be able to find something that will help to improve my lung function and stop me having so many ivs, as I had two courses very close together back at the beginning of this year. He mentioned a drug which can be nebulised, but I can't remember the name, which they have started to use in America and have seen good results so he was going to look further into it and maybe think about trialling me on that. But in the meantime, until he knew more about it, he suggested trialling me on Bronchitol. Bronchitol is a a dry powder inhaler done before physio and is designed to reduce the amount of mucus build up in the lungs. He thinks my lung function is low because there is mucus stuck right down in the bottom of my lungs which he believes can be brought up with the help of Bronchitol and lots of physio. So I have an appointment with Jo next Friday to show me how to use Bronchitol and to make sure I don't have any immediate reactions. The review results were fine except that so there were no more changes and Dr Orchard said to finish the course of Septrin that Dr.Higton gave me last week and to keep on slowly easing off the steroids right down to 1 a day so I'm still on those for another two weeks. Then I have an appointment to see him again on the 24th July.
It's all fun and games in the life of a CFer!