My kind of people? What asthmatics?

[repsac]

Long title for a short little sighting :P

Bit of background here. I have a cough. It's a weird one that's traced to me doing something stupid a few months back leaving me with some really weak lungs and some scarring. (mental note. Don't mix cleansers) Either way, I have this rather barking type cough now that will pop up if I run, do anything overly stressful, or oddly enough, get a bit over excited. So, I have to take it pretty easy when I go somewhere.

Recently, I went shopping for some xmas gifts for my mum, and found myself wandering around one of those mall department stores. May have been a Macy's but I'm not sure. Either way I wandered around the store for a while only to find that the escalator was broken, and there was no elevator in sight. Meaning I'd have to walk up a flight of stairs to get to the next floor where the "you are here" thingy said I needed to be. So I set off up the stairs, which normally would be escalators, at a pretty nice if casual pace. When I got to the top of the steps, I was a bit winded but hadn't began to cough yet and thought that maybe I'd be out of the woods on this one. (sometimes it comes and goes).

Progressing over to a retail counter, I'm leaning over looking at some jewelery that I was thinking of getting mom when I felt it coming on. I was going to start coughing and likely couldn't get stopped. Hand quickly goes to mouth as I start this barking sound, over and over, coughing my poor little brains out. While I'm doing this, a young girl approaches me and asks if I'm ok, to which I just wave her off and nod, gasping as I pull out my inhaler "I'll be fine, thanks though."

No sooner do I get out that simple sentence than the girl's mother comes tearing over and snatches at her daughter, saying loud enough to draw a glance from just about everyone in the area:

"What were you thinking? He could have given you....something. You know how people like him are."

Call me petty, but I was seriously tempted to follow her and get in line behind her, then cough on her head. If I hadn't felt so out of breath, I probably would have done it to.

[PepperElf]

yeah! Asthma is a communicable disease, right along with stupidity.

[Evil Queen]

What a bitch.

Have some tea, dear. *shares*

[Summerfly413]

So the girl's mother is teaching her to not be caring and concerned for other people's well being?

[Amethyst Hunter]

I have allergies (which are getting worse). When these get wound up, I often produce a 'barking' cough (used to get yelled at all the time by idiot teachers in school for it).

I think I would've looked at that bitch and coughed very largely and loudly in her direction without putting my hand over my mouth. Yeah lady, I'm really doing this for fun because I enjoy not being able to breathe.

[Polenicus]

I'm prone to bronchitis myself... if I get a chest cold, I know I'm headed straight for a really nasty cough, very much like you describe.

Now, in my later years, I've learned some techniques to prevent it from escalating too much. Generally, the more I cough, the more it makes me cough, so I've learned how to suppress it as much as possible, and this keeps me from tearing up my throat and descending into a never-ending cycle of coughing fits.

But, when I was younger, we didn't know better, so I took cough medicines. specifically, expectorants, which, in my case, were the WORST POSSIBLE thing for me to take, because they made me cough MORE. So, all through high school, when I did (Infrequently) get a chest cold, everyone knew because I'd have this lingering, barking cough for weeks after all the other symptoms had subsided. I had teachers send me home for my cough, even though there was nothing else wrong with me.

They'd be nasty fits too, sometimes enough to get me doubled over, and cough myself into a big ol' migraine.

[Fro]

I have the barking cough too! I can't just do a little cough, it's always a bark. We think I lost the ability to cough normally when I had croup as a wee one and now that I have asthma I just cough more frequently. Used to freak out my teachers so much in elementary school.

Actually it still freaks out people. I just blurt out "Don't worry I'm not dying I just sound like I am!" One of my friends calls it my 'sexy bark', becuase asthma is just so attractive.

[ralerin]

Ooooh! Oooh! I have asthma too, can I play?

I don't have the barking cough, I just have this cough twice, gasp, cough again, gasp thing that happens when I come into ontact with the things I'm allergic too (pets, smoke, perfume, exercise...)

Back to the topic: I third the opinion that she was a bitch.

[Bliss]

Now, in my later years, I've learned some techniques to prevent it from escalating too much.

I used to have the same symptoms you describe as a kid, it was horrible, if I couldn't stop from coughing eventually it'll reach a point where my lungs hurt and I thought I was going to die.

You can try something I found out, try to get cough syroup with (or based on) aloe, it was the only thing that calmed those coughing fits.. one spoon of aloe cough syrup, and 20 minutes latter I'd be like new.... amazing plant.

[wagegoth]

I had something similar happen at work several years ago. I worked the night shift and one night they were cleaning carpets. They were using three different cleaners (one in the shampooer, two more being sprayed from different bottles) in the high traffic hallways. I walked through twice and started coughing a bit shortly there after. It was a Thursday night (my Friday) and I went home to bed. Friday I start coughing more often, that dry barking cough.

Friday I don't believe I slept at all, despite cough medicines (not expectorants), and ended up in the ER on Saturday, unable to stop coughing. They gave me breathing treatments and a prescription. I went home, cough reduced. The one thing that ticked me off a bit was I heard one of the nurses say to the doctor that she didn't understand why I was coughing over carpet shampoo. The doctor told her that some people are more sensitive to these chemicals than others. At which point I wanted to say, "Duh."

Sunday, the coughing is back and I'm back in the ER. Another breathing treatment, new medication, note to stay home from work for a couple of days and orders to call my family doctor in the morning if I'm not better.

Monday I'm coughing again. Called my doctor's office, where they were a bit blasé until I mentioned the two trips to the ER, at which point they had me come in immediately. New prescription, orders to stay home for a few more days, and complete rest. And I finally stopped coughing enough to sleep.

My firm paid for everything under worker's compensation, as the coughing apparently resulted from the carpet shampooing.


I was so pissed at the janitors. My parents had a janitorial business and I knew you never mix cleaners, never. If you have to, you use one, clean it off, then apply the next. The topper was that one of the janitors had been drinking so much that I could smell the liquor on him over the smell of all the cleaning products, which I duly reported to HR when I put in my claim.

And NEVER mix chlorine and ammonia, a very common mistake that can kill you.

[McGoddess09]

Reading this thread about coughing makes me want to cough. My coughs aren't little either. I bark also.

Damnit.

[ArcticChicken]

And NEVER mix chlorine and ammonia, a very common mistake that can kill you.

Isn't mustard gas fun!

[ParkingWitch]

* bark bark hack hack hack gasp bark bark choke gag * "Hey catch that lung I might need it later" * bark bark bark*

reccurent bronchitis is SO much fun, I got caught out in a 30 degree F temperature drop back in 85 doctor said I almost frosted a lung

[calulu]

Oxycodone and Vicodin quiet a cough too.... you can even get this wonderous cough syrup that is basically liquid Vicodin in a pleasant fruit flavored base.

[Bella_Vixen]

you can even get this wonderous cough syrup that is basically liquid Vicodin in a pleasant fruit flavored base.

Name please?