Persistent Bronchitis anyone?

Bronchitis seems to be an increasing problem for me, despite the fact that I have never smoked. I assume the doctor is correct in diagnosing it as bronchitis, since she had a good listen to my chest last time I saw her.

She (and I ) believe I've not got an infection any more (i'm not coughing anything up) just inflammation. My symptoms are hoarseness, a little coughing, discomfort in lungs and generally feeling worse (weak, shivery etc). Cold and physical effort seem to make it worse.

There is a reason why I see it as part of my ME symptoms, rather than an independent problem. It goes away if I go into one of my seasonal ME remissions, and it can come back without any apparent cause when my remission is over. Even before ME I would sometimes get long periods of breathlessness following a cold/flu, and although I tried lots of asthma treatments that never seemed to help.

I've tried prednisone to try and settle my immune system down but it hasn't worked this time (previously improvement has followed a course of prednisone). Has anyone else had experience with managing persistent bronchitis?

The current run kicked off a few months ago after an upper respiratory tract infection, which seemed to particularly go for my lungs , horrible burning sensations inside, then there was definitely an infection (lots of gunk to cough up) which cleared after maybe 3 to 4 weeks. But boy I still feel rubbish. Housebound and i am in difficult circumstances.

Anyone?

 

Wish I had something useful to suggest....
Do you think there is anything to be gained from seeing a respiratory specialist? Would your GP refer?

 

Well Daisybell thanks for the reply.
I have just managed, this week, to get myself back to the UK(Bournemouth, temporarily at least). And I have no relationship of any sort with a GP here. I think it will be a long process to get a referral out of the NHS, extremely draining and likely useless. But perhaps I am just too cynical about the NHS.

 

Well done for making it safely half way round the world!
Maybe, if you can now de-stress a bit, your body might repair your lungs.... fingers crossed!