So after another long discussion with a physio on wednesday and much prodding of my chest (painful!) and a visit to the gp had also occurred on monday we discovered I don't have pleurisy after all. I infact have some muscular skeletal problems which is probably infact worse than pleurisy.
What is now believed to be the case is that I have strained and pulled the muscles so much on both sides of my chest wall that fibres have been torn (lucky me!). Normally this would take about 2-3weeks to heal after you have finished coughing. Anyone notice the problem there??????
Thats right, I will never stop coughing. I have physio to do which induces coughing and then there is everytime i step out of the warmth into the cold, and back into the warmth after being in the cold that also induces coughing fits!! So basically this pain will continue for what could be months as its going to take a long time to heal. As any harsh coughing is going to just restretch the muscles and slow down or undo any repairing that had been going on!
The solution: keep taking ibuprofen, rest as much as possible and suppress the cough as much as possible until I think the phlegm will is very close to come up so that the coughing will then be as brief as possible! Otherwise basically noone can do anything and I just have to live with it.
Living with it is easier said than done considering-having a shower and washing my hair causes the pain to flare up, washing the dishes causes the pain to flare up, going round the supermarket causes the pain to flare up, standing up for longer than 15minutes at a time even if its just standing still causes pain to flare up.
Resting and not doing alot doesnt come easy to me!!
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