Nate, have you had your blood tested for eosiniphils? They’re part of your immune system that fight parasitic infections but, for some people, they can actually attack your airway, when you get sick. In other words, getting sick makes you sicker.
I’m also an asthma / allergy sufferer, and I’m sick basically from November through March. You’re worse off than me, since I’m on my second course of antibiotics and third course of prednisone, but what made it better, for me, was an injection called Fasenra.
Fasenra is a genetically engineered drug that binds to your eosiniphils and causes your white blood cells to attack them, like any other invader. This can reduce your reaction to getting sick. Yeah, you lose resistance to parasites – try to avoid drinking water in tropical countries, and stuff. (I don’t work for Astra-Zeneca, I swear, I just read the whitepaper.)
It hasn’t been a miracle cure, by any means, but, unlike last winter and three weeks in November (where I couldn’t ride at all), I’ve been able to stick to my training plan, this year! I can breathe, I’m not getting lung or sinus infections, and I’ve been making slow progress.
Ask your pulmonologist to check your blood test for your eosiniphil count. There are other injections that are not normal immunotherapy (allergy shots) which can help. I actually had to stop getting allergy shots after years of taking them, because my body was becoming more and more sensitive, and they were helping less and less.
I’ve also resigned myself to living on a raft of medicines: this winter, it’s been twice-daily maximum strength Mucinex (the brand name stuff, the generics make me loopy) to thin out the stuff in my lungs and cough it up before it gets infected. Prednisone also does wonders for me – if there weren’t problems with long term usage, I’d be on the stuff the whole winter. The neti pot (using distilled / boiled water!) twice a day also helps.
Lastly, there’s the trusty ole’ nebulizer, which I do two or three times a day, using albuterol drops, budesonide to reduce inflammation, cromolyn sodium to stabilize my lungs, and ipatropium bromide to control cough. After that it’s a couple of puffs of symbicort and a puff of spiriva. I actually just took two puffs of normal albuterol while typing this, as my lungs were feeling kind of tight.
Again – this is not a miracle cure. I will never have lungs that feel good, year round. What this has allowed me to do is to actually build fitness – Strava says my fitness is better in February than it was this time last year. I don’t want to sleep, all the time, I have enough energy to work / take care of my family and then get on the trainer in the evening. This, alone, is worth celebrating.
I hope things get better, man. I’ve been right where you are (though, admittedly, not quite as bad) and there is still hope, out there. If your doctor suggests trying Fasenra, and you can’t afford it, they do have a copay assistance program, and you can always ask for goodwill assistance.
Good luck, Nate. Keep us posted.
