Ah, Doctors. When they get a thought in their head it must only be that surely.

[Zaiida]

Over past few months I had been getting very irritated in my lungs. I thought it was because of a nasty throat and chest infection I'd had mid 2012 that hung around for some time and this spring/summer is horrendus for anyone with allergies so I went to my PC Doc to get another, stronger inhaler about a week ago. It was working on and off and I finally found the cause of my lung irritation about 3 days ago.

I smoke ecigs and mix my own liquid. Guess which idiot didn't check the water quality. Yep I'd been smoking mouldy water for the past few months. DING! we have a moron over here!! Anywho, I sterlized everything and was fine for a day and a half when I took my dog for a walk. I was walking and talking and my chest began to feel.. heavy and restricted. I was getting all function and air in but it was taking a lot of effort to do so. Go home and take my inhalers which eased it initally but as the evening went on it got very hard to breathe without effort.

Got my aunt who was staying to take me to the emergency room. My oxy was 100%, my heart rate between 72 and 117 and my blood pressure kept making the machine go spazzy. The nebulised me an I got better but there still was a a slight nagging heaviness which kept waking me up at night.

Flatmate had to go to melbourne yesterday so I was left alone. He dropped me off at the clinic for an emergency appointment with a doc I have never seen before. Lungs clear heart and temp fine and said since I'm bipolar I am having an anixiety attack but I managed to get a referral for a chest xray (he gave it to humour me ) and went home. I didn't doubt him but this was a brand new type of attack if it was one. I haven't had one for 3 years and I act more 'traditional anxiety' when having one, this was different. Then I went home, no openings for xray until today. Yesterday was horrible. I tried steaming, vitamins, asmol, other inhalers, breathing techniques and I was sleeping sitting up. That heaviness was brutal.

About 2am I really started labouring with breathing. I knew my oxygen was fine but it was an effort and slow to take a full breath and forget moving fast I would see spots. JIC I called an ambulance who were exceptionally sweet and said 'yep anxiety attack' but took me to the hospital where they gave me a tiny dose xanax which did mostly work and drove me home (seriously wonderful and sweet guys, one looked and acted just like my beloved grandpa which made me cry. I miss him)

I call the clinic at 8am and I sweet talk the receptionist to take me in at 11am but I had an opening for an xray so I had one done while waiting. Well, what do you know, the lower blood vessels in my chest are seriously irritated and inflamed showing either an old infection or current one. Which I found odd because it should have shown up on the blood test. So it wasn't all in my head but the one fear of mine is impaired breathing so I kept panicking when I couldn't breathe properly. Seriously I can't swim without fear because of it. On the plus side the rest of my lungs are clear and so are my boobies so I took this to my PC Doc who finally gave me anitbiotics and some very low dose xanax. In his defense he didn't know about the mould inhalation but the previous doctor did.

So here I am at home doped up on many a thing, torn between wanting to shout VINDICATION!! and aww shit, I now have panic attacks dammit. Already I feel better breathing but moving does increase the effort to breathe but with the antibiotics and a little help from happy pills it should clear up in a week or so. I'll need to do some behaviour and breathing retraining so I don't set myself off again which may take a bit longer.

Moral of the story, please don't assume people with a mental problem have all their physical problems because its' in their heads'. I knew I was overreacting but I also knew something was wrong, hence me overreacting. They all had electronic access to my charts and you can tell I only go to help when I feel something is very wrong. None of the doctors involved did anything wrong though, they were just fixated on my metal problems causing this. It was aggravated by this but it wasn't the cause. That's what I have a problem with which is why I like my PC Doc. He knows me well enough to know I don't bother him unless there is something wrong and takes my word for it and gets the ball rolling.

Already been an expensive year, bulk billing or not *wince* Hope everyone has had a happier new year so far. Cheers

[AccountingDrone]

Glad you are getting sorted out.

Now, go and *buy* distilled water for your e-cigs! Keep it in the fridge, don't cross contaminate it with anything and throw it away and replace frequently!

[42_42_42]

Or, even better, stop using any kind of cig!

Also, antibiotics will not work if what you have is a mold infection, not a bacterial infection.

Also, also, be CAREFUL with the Xanax: it is HIGHLY addictive!

[Zaiida]

It was distilled bottled water. Apparently I had bought a batch that was too close to it's use by date and didn't notice the mould until a filling syringe came back totally filled with white ickyness, yucky.

I'm already hating the xanax. I'm not liking this at all, this feeling of being spaced out and not caring. It's handy until this is over and at most if this anxiety is to be a semi perminant thing I'll switch to something else recommended by my doc. This is mainly for panic about a specific thing, it'll ease off then I'll ease off. I don't like sleeping the day away just not caring. I've spent too long getting myself weaned off psyc drugs which made me feel this way to go back to it again I like thinking, caring and being able to function with my brain. Hell, even my typing has gone to shittier than normal and I can't seem to think too well. It took forever to write the origional post.

Whatever this infection is stared back in 2012 before the mouldy water. I have been getting sick constantly so it has been something I haven't been able of shake off so this is a last resort. I can't seem to clear it on my own. I don't ask or take antibiotics lightly, it's hell for me on them.

[AccountingDrone]

There is [normally] no nutrient component in distilled water, so it should not 'get moldy' simply because it was nearing the use by date. You are cross contaminating your source bottle with whatever tools you are using. I would recommend that either you get the small 8 oz pods and discard/drink the rest after you tap off however much you need to fill *or* wash and sterilize a smaller vessel, pour off a suitable amount and reseal the source bottle.

[Zaiida]

Yup going to use a new bottle everytime now instead of every 2nd or 3rd. Either a few drops of glycerine got in or something flew in. I keep finding those little moths in everything. Usually I'm pretty good about cross contaminates but I fucked up somewhere obviously. My syringes are labelled for each specific use but in all likelyhood I used a glycerine one in the water without paying attention and it was from that.

Anyway, guess who got the summer cold and the gastro bug that's been floating around? Yup, good old me. Got it from the Doctor's office. Sigh. It's going to be a rough week. Punishment I suppose for being a right twit.

[Seshat]

One time I was in a doctor's office for a chest problem - I forget what sort - and said to the doc '... and I'm feeling light-headed'.
She just looked up from whatever she was reading (it's a long time ago, she was reading some gauge or other), and said "That's because you're hyperventilating."
"Oh," quoth I. With great intelligence, obviously. :P

So I made myself breathe to a pattern, the hyperventilation went away, and she waited for a bit, then did an asthma test on me.

... which proves that yes, I am mildly asthmatic, as it happens. But so mildly that it wasn't the cause. Turns out I had a minor infection that time.

I've had my share of sucky doctors, but she was a decent one. Let me sort out my panic, and didn't assume it to be the cause of the problem - just a result of it.

[raudf]

Mom is an ex-smoker with a panic disorder and asthma. Guess who, for about a year straight, was having panic attacks because her asthma attacks? *sigh* Her doc took her seriously, fortunately, because she had walking pneumonia on top of everything at the time.

Now she's under control and it's been at least 6 years. She's now on another med for panic, and takes her asthma/allergy meds too. Plus, she quit smoking and Dad, when he smokes, goes outside to do it.

[Shalom]

I keep finding those little moths in everything. .

Do they look like this?

If so, you have Indian Meal Moths. ("indian" as in native american, not south asian; it's an old name. I don't know if you get these Down Under, but if you import any food from North America, you might have gotten some as unwanted passengers.)

Go to your pantry closet and look into everything with grain in it. Rice is especially beloved of these little buggers, but they will eat any kind of breakfast cereal, pearl barley, oatmeal, nuts, candy and so forth. Sooner or later you will encounter a bag, box, jar or whatever with what looks like spider webbing in it, possibly with what look like tiny white worms (about 1cm long) with a black spot at one end. I once got a box of quick-cooking rolled oats that when I opened it up, the entire damned thing was a solid mass of webbing, ick!

Look on the ceilings and on the undersides of the shelves too, the larvae like to crawl upwards.

Obviously whatever's infested you'll have to throw out, although I've managed to salvage bulk rice and barley by shaking a few cups at a time in a large strainer; the worms and the eggs fall through and the rice stays in. (Something like a box of Cheerios isn't worth messing with.) The Orange Apron also sells pheromone traps for these moths, but it only catches the males, which aren't the ones laying the eggs. I don't know any other way of getting rid of them, but if you do find every last infested box and purge them, eventually you won't get any more, at least until the next time you buy an infested bag of rice or whatever. They don't live very long even if you don't squash them; you just want to kill 'm before they lay another 50 eggs apiece.

ETA: I've found them in spice jars too, if someone didn't tighten the lid down all the way. Here's a picture of the worms, which I'll post as a link rather than inline: click at your own risk.

[Seshat]

AHA!

One time I thought I had weevils in my pantry, but that picture strikes a bell.

We put E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. grainlike and un-infested in plastic. Even then, we waited a week before eating anything grainlike that wasn't new - a couple of the things in the plastic had to be tossed too.

One thorough pantry cleaning later, and absolute dedication to putting anything potentially infestable in plastic ... and we were still occasionally finding that some stuff was inedible. But at least the inedibles were confined to the plastic containers, and the critters died in there. :wry:

It was almost a year before we stopped putting everything grainlike in plastic as part of unpacking groceries. But we've accepted that anything we don't store like that, we're risking losing.

[Zaiida]

Nah just little tiny brown moths. Harmless but annoying and they just get everywhere. It's not an infestation just a population explosion. We seem to have a different species explosion every year just for variety

Doc now has me on xanax for immediate relief and I'm on Zoloft daily as well now. With my lungs I'm allergic to something and he doesn't know what. Whatever it is it's causing bronichospasms which can be treated with the above meds so I may not be having actual panic attacks. I had a 'real' panic attack last night, it was completely different to what I've been told I have been having recently. My Doc agrees that this may be a new type of attack but the treatment is still the same.

I'm still sneezing (still slightly sick)and having some OTC decongestant (I asked the pharmacist, good to go) and it has helped but I think this may be one of those things I will just have to ride out until it eventually goes back to normal. Apart from the blood vessels in my lungs being inflamed my lungs and heart and blood stats are perfect. I've got a chesty cough so that's a good sign because I can get the gunk out finally.

I have noticed that I have been getting progressively more sensitive and allergic to things these past few years, this just could be a new sensitivity I have to live with. My lactose allergy has gone through the roof and so has my fluoride allergy and I've been getting eczema again which I haven't had for years. Something is triggering an inflammatory response to what I don't know.

Oh well, so far its not life threatening that god but still annoying. I detest being medically stoned. Horrible I go on an OCD cleaning binge. I HATE CLEANING !!

[Draper Mel]

My mother had COPD and any time she had trouble breathing it would trigger anxiety or panic, which would make her breathing even worse. It was a vicious cycle, but she could tell when it was happening, which helped.

It's totally understandable; feeling like you can't breathe is scary.

[Rapscallion]

Obviously whatever's infested you'll have to throw out, although I've managed to salvage bulk rice and barley by shaking a few cups at a time in a large strainer; the worms and the eggs fall through and the rice stays in.

Of course, you could always drop the rice in the freezer for a few days and let that kill off the larvae and eggs, which then turn to dust when defrosted and shaken around. This is a methodology approved for organic products. No pesticides involved, see?

Rapscallion (in the industry)

[Shalom]

That's good to know, thanks. I'll bear it in mind for the next infestation; it will save some labor, if not time. (And you know there will be a next infestation...)

Now you mention it, I actually did this once with a very infested 1-pound bag of dried mixed beans, but more out of anger at the bugs/worms than from any intention of salvaging the beans. I don't recall muttering "Die you bastards!!" as I slammed the freezer door shut, but I might as well have done... I didn't particularly notice anything turning to dust, but the eggs did fall through the strainer and none of them had hatched, which was the important part.

[dalesys]

We discovered that weevily wheat was good for baking bread... for my MIL.