HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Asthma < > Lpr

Support Forums
>
GERD & Acid Reflux
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 11/26/2015 9:42 AM (GMT 0)
Sorry for so many questions lately, but in this case I want to make sure I know what to say to my new GP.

I suspect I may have asthma, or at least anxiety mimicking it, brought on by LPR. Does anyone have experience of LPR-Asthma going away after surgical intervention?

Also can anxiety have similar symptoms to LPR at all? For example can chest tightness alone affect breathing? (I barely wheeze and I never cough).
Posted 11/26/2015 1:35 PM (GMT 0)
Hi
In my experience LPR can cause some form of airway sensitivity. Before my symptoms getting the point of needing medical intervention I had zero airway or asthma type symptoms. Typical asthma is a wheeze but there is a variant called Cough variant asthma which is what it say on the tin....mainly coughing. I think you are very lucky in the fact you aren't experiencing the wheeze or the cough. I think if you were to have asthma or asthma brought on by LPR you would have at least one of those symptoms more than likely and most frequently the cough. My cough is no longer as frequent or violent as prior to surgery but I still have an element of sensitivity in my airways which triggers a cough with laughing, cold air, strong smells. I suspect you would have very similar symptoms should you have any form of asthma.

Anxiety is a very real and debilitating illness and I have at times suffered with it and its frightening how it can make you feel. Chest tightness is one of the classic and most common signs of anxiety and whilst I'm certainly not saying ALL of your symptoms are down to anxiety, I think you can be a little reassured that if you did indeed have asthma, you would most likely have an element of wheezing or coughing.

I hope you have some progress with you new GP and can soon find some relief to your symptoms.
Posted 11/27/2015 12:31 AM (GMT 0)
Chest tightness can be because of anxiety, but also LPR. Thats what makes this such a pain!

There are a few ways LPR can affect your airways, it can inflame your nasal passages and larynx which can feel like an obstruction, which it kind of is.

It can cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) which shares a lot of the symptoms that asthma has. Its a bit of an umbrella term to describe chronic bronchitis and chronic emphysema. Don't google it, its a bit freaky, and it takes a long time for it to get to emphysema levels - like decades.

If you are prone to aspirating, you are at a higher risk for aspiration pneumonia, this is one of my bigger problems, I will aspirate without fail at least once a night if I'm lying down flat (instead of angled) and it sucks. Its exactly like when you accidentally breath water in while you are drinking, except I think because its also acidic (in my case at least) that awful painful cough and watery rattle doesn't go away after a few mins, it takes a few days.

Good news is though the damage is reversible, there is another user here, I think its one of the forum moderators, who had severe asthma and actually had their fundoplication while they had a lung infection and since the surgery their asthma has gotten much better, I think its still there, but not to the extent it was.

As for the anxiety... I put a HUGE reply to another one of your posts about it, but I will say that despite the fact that LPR has stolen my life from me, anxiety hands down is so much harder to deal with but when you find what works for you, its like everything becomes just a little bit easier, even stuff you never realised were being influenced by your anxiety just become better.
Posted 11/27/2015 12:54 AM (GMT 0)
Whilst I agree completely with everything you say and I too have been in identical situation as you, I do however think that reflux that reaches the airways will most definitely cause some sensitivity. As with asthma/reflux asthma. In daxter case, he said he never coughs and rarely wheezes. I think it's reassuring that that isn't happening. Asthma has 2 main symptoms wheeze and cough which he has neither. Think it's good to have a fair guess and say he doesn't have asthma. Obviously not a doctor but I've suffered like you and can only go by experience of that when lpr is bad wheeze and cough are a major annoyance.
Dexter not disputing that you aren't reflux but trying to reassure you that lungs are very sensitive to minuscule amount of even aerosolised reflux and I would expect you to have even a mild cough in response to your lungs being irritated.
Posted 11/27/2015 12:57 AM (GMT 0)
I too also really sympathise with you suffering with anxiety. And reflux and gets go hand in glove. I get anxious even when I'm "sleeping" my reflux is 50% worse too when I'm stressed. Vicious circle.
Posted Today 11:22 PM (GMT 0)
Thats a good point Trotters, the cough is the first thing that happens for me, long before the rest of the lung-related problems set in. Your lungs are after all designed to expel any foreign matter immediately by coughing and cranking up mucous production.
Posted 12/12/2015 4:44 PM (GMT 0)

Trotters said...
Whilst I agree completely with everything you say and I too have been in identical situation as you, I do however think that reflux that reaches the airways will most definitely cause some sensitivity. As with asthma/reflux asthma. In daxter case, he said he never coughs and rarely wheezes. I think it's reassuring that that isn't happening. Asthma has 2 main symptoms wheeze and cough which he has neither. Think it's good to have a fair guess and say he doesn't have asthma. Obviously not a doctor but I've suffered like you and can only go by experience of that when lpr is bad wheeze and cough are a major annoyance.
Dexter not disputing that you aren't reflux but trying to reassure you that lungs are very sensitive to minuscule amount of even aerosolised reflux and I would expect you to have even a mild cough in response to your lungs being irritated.

Sorry to revive an old post, but I have so many questions right now (see my other, more recent post). I apparantly had asthma as a child; what if it's come back, and it's the asthma that is causing LPR? Is there a way to tell? And what about inhalers? If they work on my symptoms, does that guarantee Asthma and rule out LPR as a cause? Seriously scared of having TWO illnesses for life right now.
Posted 12/12/2015 7:52 PM (GMT 0)
There are breathing tests you can take to determine if you have asthma. You breathe through a tube in to a machine. LPR can also cause vocal cord problems which lead to breathing issues and some of these tests determine if that is a factor as well, however to my knowledge there will be a distinct sound slightly like wheezing if you have vocal cord dysfunction.

I have had asthma for years, but it never really bothered me (even after having to have lung surgery 9 years ago) since the LPR it has become a much bigger issue for me. Sometimes using my rescue inhaler helps, but I haven't been able to tell 100% if it's needed or if asthma is event he culprit. I'd say get an appointment with a lung doctor and get checked for asthma. If it's there you need to have a rescue inhaler in case you need it. Don't be too scared though I have fibromyalgia, IBS, LPR, Asthma, and TMJD. I don't consider myself a strong person, but I'm managing it. It's only scary if you don't know what's going on. Make finding out your priority over everything, holidays, work, money none of that matters compared to your health. People online can only tell you their experience you will only know for sure what is wrong with proper testing and good doctors. I hope you feel better soon.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply