Expensive Mucus
Hi.
I talked about this in my February post. And on Instagram if you follow me there. But I'm going to talk about it here because I don't put these kinds of details in my journal, and I like having an easy reference if I need it in the future.
On December 9, 2019, I woke up feeling yucky. You know when your throat feels dry, not the kind like you need water, but the kind where if you drink a gallon of water, it still feels dry, and you suspect an illness coming on.
The reason I remember the date is because that night, I had dinner with two friends in Farmington. I almost bailed because I thought I was sick, and I felt super tired.
The severe allergy symptoms felt a lot like a cold. I didn't have a cough or headache. It mostly just felt like it was in my face. I took cough medicine and Nyquil and hoped it would go away.
In a week or two, most of the severe symptoms had cleared up, except that I was still blowing my nose constantly. I mean all day long.
I took Claritin for a couple of days. It didn't help. After about a month, I finally tried a saline nose wash. It didn't help.
On January 15, after five weeks of dealing with this garbage, I made a doctor appointment. My doctor confirmed that it was not a sinus infection that he could see.
He asked me to do a week of Flonase and Claritin, with nose wash as well.
I obediently followed his orders.
It did not get better. Every day I seemed to need to blow my nose only slightly less. It was still incredibly frequent, and was not connected to the weather at all. It was constant. I've been through so many boxes of tissue, and I resent the non-lotion tissue at work.
In this three month span of time, I've had to make sure I have napkins and tissue on me at all times, whether in my purse or in my car. I'm taking any extras I can from restaurants and shoving them into my purse. I'm grabbing handfuls at the movie theater concessions area and shoving them into my purse because I'll have to blow my nose at least three times during the movie. I'm at a point where the stock of napkins in my glove compartment has run out, and I'm running low on those little pocket packs of tissue.
Most of the time the mucus was clear, indicating no infection. But once a day or so, I would have a yellowish/greenish tissue. And also once a day, I'd end up with a small black speck of what looked like mold or lint in my mucus. Sorry, I know that's gross. But these occurrences left me a little concerned.
I repeatedly told Matthew and my mom that I believed I had something in my face. Otherwise why would my body keep producing mucus like this? It's trying to protect from some foreign invader.
On February 11, I had had enough. I emailed an ENT in my network to request an appointment. His nurse got back with me the next day, but I didn't see the message until several days later, and I didn't call back until the 20th. I really am not great at this self-care thing.
Thankfully, the nurse was able to squeeze me in on February 26 in the morning.
Dr. Davis was great. He wasn't dismissive of my concerns but did say that he couldn't see anything threatening or dangerous, as he deals with a lot of cancers and tumors in his line of work.
He sprayed this numbing stuff up my nose that left me feeling weird for a couple of hours.
He said to use Flonase 2x a day for a week, and due to the time constraint on my insurance with my job change, we should set an appointment for a sinus CT scan. I debated on whether to set that appointment due to cost, hoping the Flonase would do the trick.
But when they gave me the cost estimate, under $300, I went ahead and scheduled the CT scan for Friday, February 28.
It was a quick and painless process.
I waited all day on Monday, March 2 for a phone call, but didn't get one.
Finally, when I was almost to work on Tuesday, March 3, I got a phone call from the nurse. I told her I'd be heading into a parking garage in a few minutes, and asked if it would be quick or if she'd need to call back. She said she would call back.
When I got up to my office and spoke with her, she said I had diffuse mucosal periosteal thickening in both of my cheeks. The doctor would prescribe an antibiotic for 20 days. After that, he wants to do another CT scan to see if it helped, and go from there.
I checked on my insurance, and thankfully it goes until the end of this month. So we're setting another sinus CT scan on March 23, and have set a follow-up appointment on March 25.
I'm grateful the doctor took me seriously when I suspected that it was more serious than what Flonase could help with, and wasted no time getting me a CT scan. I'm grateful for insurance. I'm grateful it's nothing super threatening (mostly annoying and inconvenient). I am grateful for a kind, proactive, and helpful nurse to work with. I am grateful I know what's normal for me and my body, and that I listened to myself when I felt that something more was wrong, and that this wasn't going away. I'm grateful for technology, for modern medicine, and probiotics for helping to protect me against the gross risks of taking antibiotics. I'm grateful to have some answers at this point, and am hoping that the antibiotics resolve it. These marathon allergy symptoms have worn me down.
And I'm thankful I've always had generally good health.
Because if mucus in my face is costing me $500+ in CT scans, $80+ in appointments, and $however much in prescriptions, I can only imagine what more serious issues might cost me.
Here's to getting rid of the expensive mucus.
Eff Utah and its winter allergies.
I talked about this in my February post. And on Instagram if you follow me there. But I'm going to talk about it here because I don't put these kinds of details in my journal, and I like having an easy reference if I need it in the future.
On December 9, 2019, I woke up feeling yucky. You know when your throat feels dry, not the kind like you need water, but the kind where if you drink a gallon of water, it still feels dry, and you suspect an illness coming on.
The reason I remember the date is because that night, I had dinner with two friends in Farmington. I almost bailed because I thought I was sick, and I felt super tired.
The severe allergy symptoms felt a lot like a cold. I didn't have a cough or headache. It mostly just felt like it was in my face. I took cough medicine and Nyquil and hoped it would go away.
In a week or two, most of the severe symptoms had cleared up, except that I was still blowing my nose constantly. I mean all day long.
I took Claritin for a couple of days. It didn't help. After about a month, I finally tried a saline nose wash. It didn't help.
On January 15, after five weeks of dealing with this garbage, I made a doctor appointment. My doctor confirmed that it was not a sinus infection that he could see.
He asked me to do a week of Flonase and Claritin, with nose wash as well.
I obediently followed his orders.
It did not get better. Every day I seemed to need to blow my nose only slightly less. It was still incredibly frequent, and was not connected to the weather at all. It was constant. I've been through so many boxes of tissue, and I resent the non-lotion tissue at work.
In this three month span of time, I've had to make sure I have napkins and tissue on me at all times, whether in my purse or in my car. I'm taking any extras I can from restaurants and shoving them into my purse. I'm grabbing handfuls at the movie theater concessions area and shoving them into my purse because I'll have to blow my nose at least three times during the movie. I'm at a point where the stock of napkins in my glove compartment has run out, and I'm running low on those little pocket packs of tissue.
Most of the time the mucus was clear, indicating no infection. But once a day or so, I would have a yellowish/greenish tissue. And also once a day, I'd end up with a small black speck of what looked like mold or lint in my mucus. Sorry, I know that's gross. But these occurrences left me a little concerned.
I repeatedly told Matthew and my mom that I believed I had something in my face. Otherwise why would my body keep producing mucus like this? It's trying to protect from some foreign invader.
On February 11, I had had enough. I emailed an ENT in my network to request an appointment. His nurse got back with me the next day, but I didn't see the message until several days later, and I didn't call back until the 20th. I really am not great at this self-care thing.
Thankfully, the nurse was able to squeeze me in on February 26 in the morning.
Dr. Davis was great. He wasn't dismissive of my concerns but did say that he couldn't see anything threatening or dangerous, as he deals with a lot of cancers and tumors in his line of work.
He sprayed this numbing stuff up my nose that left me feeling weird for a couple of hours.
He said to use Flonase 2x a day for a week, and due to the time constraint on my insurance with my job change, we should set an appointment for a sinus CT scan. I debated on whether to set that appointment due to cost, hoping the Flonase would do the trick.
But when they gave me the cost estimate, under $300, I went ahead and scheduled the CT scan for Friday, February 28.
It was a quick and painless process.
I waited all day on Monday, March 2 for a phone call, but didn't get one.
Finally, when I was almost to work on Tuesday, March 3, I got a phone call from the nurse. I told her I'd be heading into a parking garage in a few minutes, and asked if it would be quick or if she'd need to call back. She said she would call back.
When I got up to my office and spoke with her, she said I had diffuse mucosal periosteal thickening in both of my cheeks. The doctor would prescribe an antibiotic for 20 days. After that, he wants to do another CT scan to see if it helped, and go from there.
I checked on my insurance, and thankfully it goes until the end of this month. So we're setting another sinus CT scan on March 23, and have set a follow-up appointment on March 25.
I'm grateful the doctor took me seriously when I suspected that it was more serious than what Flonase could help with, and wasted no time getting me a CT scan. I'm grateful for insurance. I'm grateful it's nothing super threatening (mostly annoying and inconvenient). I am grateful for a kind, proactive, and helpful nurse to work with. I am grateful I know what's normal for me and my body, and that I listened to myself when I felt that something more was wrong, and that this wasn't going away. I'm grateful for technology, for modern medicine, and probiotics for helping to protect me against the gross risks of taking antibiotics. I'm grateful to have some answers at this point, and am hoping that the antibiotics resolve it. These marathon allergy symptoms have worn me down.
And I'm thankful I've always had generally good health.
Because if mucus in my face is costing me $500+ in CT scans, $80+ in appointments, and $however much in prescriptions, I can only imagine what more serious issues might cost me.
Here's to getting rid of the expensive mucus.
Eff Utah and its winter allergies.
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